Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett explained Wednesday why President Biden’s classified documents case “doesn’t” have a defense under the Federal Records Act.
Jarrett appeared on “Hannity” to discuss the DOJ’s investigation into Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, in which no charges will reportedly be brought against the president. Fox host Sean Hannity asked the legal analyst for his reaction to the new information and compared Biden’s case to former President Donald Trump’s.
Jarrett gave credit to the whistleblowers by explaining that they have revealed to the public how the DOJ was “running a protection racket for Joe Biden for years.” The legal analyst continued to state that while he was not surprised by the outcome of the DOJ’s investigation, he noted that Biden has “no defense under the Federal Records Act.” (RELATED: House Oversight Investigating Whether Joe Biden Held Classified Documents Related To Hunter Biden’s Business Dealings)
“I would say credit is deserving of the whistleblowers. I mean they’re the ones who told us that the DOJ has been running a protection racket for Joe Biden for years. Remember, investigators were banned from asking about Joe’s involvement in his son’s influence peddling schemes despite evidence of complicity,” Jarrett stated.
“So Sean, did anybody really expect that Joe’s document scandal would be treated any differently? I think the fix was in from the beginning – Trump gets charged. Biden doesn’t. Even though, and this is important, Joe has no defense under the Federal Records Act, Trump does, because some of the records came from Biden’s time as a senator not President. And under the records act a former president can have custody and control over such documents, not a senator.”
Jarrett pointed out a similar case argued by former President Bill Clinton, which had involved a conservative activist group, Judicial Watch, suing the National Archives and Record Administration to obtain audio recordings of interviews between Clinton and historian Taylor Branch. Jarrett emphasized on the supposed double standard the DOJ has taken between Trump and Biden, calling the system “two-tiered.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Heritage Foundation Presses DOJ To Investigate Joe Biden’s Aliases As Part Of Classified Docs Case)
“Indeed, that was the opinion of the Department of Justice for two long decades. They argued in the famous Bill Clinton case that a former president can keep whatever he wants including classified documents – a federal judge agreed. Suddenly, Trump comes along and the DOJ throws that policy out the window. They indict Trump on top of it they charge him with obstruction for doing exactly what Bill Clinton did. Clinton resisted,” Jarrett stated.
“The proper legal remedy here was from Merrick Garland to file a civil action not criminal, which is under the act, and it is the governing authority. That is how the Clinton case was handled. Let a judge decide who gets what. Instead they criminalized it because it’s Donald Trump. Another example of how the DOJ has a two-tiered system of justice.”
Between November 2022 and January 2023, authorities have conducted three searches at Biden’s Delaware home and his offices at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center. The discovery found the president had kept classified documents in both locations during his time from serving as a senator and vice president.
The classified documents had been kept long after he was out of office, including before his presidential election in 2020. As Biden received bipartisan backlash, federal investigators had similarly found classified documents that had been stored within Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residences.