Classified Docs At CNS: The Double Standard, Part 2

After defending Donald Trump over his possession of classified documents, CNSNews.com lashed out at President Biden when classified documents were found at his properties -- at least until some were also found at Mike Pence's house.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 4/12/2023

Craig Bannister

After all the fuss about top secret documents found at President Donald Trump's Florida estate, it turns out that former Vice President Joe Biden also had documents "with classified markings" in his possession.

The classified documents were discovered in office space formerly used by Joe Biden at the University of Pennsylvania's Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on November 2, 2022 -- six days before the general election.

But we're just hearing about it now, from a statement released by the White House Counsel's Office, which reads as follows:

Jones then went on to uncritically quote Republicans eager to insist that this was somehow much worse than Trump's situation:

Democrats say Biden's case is different than Trump's because Biden's attorneys volunteered the information and sent the documents -- fewer than Trump had -- to the Archives without being asked. Trump reportedly failed to cooperate with the Archives' repeated demands for the return of classified documents in his possession.

But Republicans say Biden has just as much to answer for, as the following tweets from Republican politicians indicate:

-- “Biden stole classified documents and stored them at his think tank while he was VP. The VP does not have any authority to declassify classified documents. And this “think tank” received $54 million in funding from the CCP," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted on Monday.

-- "Re. Biden and classified documents: there can't be separate standards for Republicans and Democrats. The same rules must apply to everyone," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted.

-- "Joe Biden stole classified documents. This is a very serious crime. DOJ & NARA can’t sweep this under the rug AND persecute Trump," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted on Monday.

[...]

-- "It’s just been discovered that Biden had HIGHLY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS that were improperly stored in one of his private offices. INCREDIBLE! WHERE is the FBI? WHERE is the dramatic raid? We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them and one for us," Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) tweeted.

CNS then fired up its right-wing talking points machine over the next several days:

• Geraldo: ‘Why Bother with ‘Bull***t?’ DOJ Should Drop Trump Probe after ‘Biden’s Own Document Embarrassment’
• Lots of Questions, But Same Evasive Answer Wednesday at the White House About Biden Classified Documents
• Republicans Demand DOJ Appoint a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Biden
• Gingrich on Biden Documents Case: 'This Is Not Going to Go Away. It's Going to Get Bigger'
• Rep. Tenney: 'We Know There's More Coming Out on Joe Biden'
• Classified Documents Found in Biden's Wilmington Garage; Biden Stumbles Through Explanation
• Steve Doocy: ‘There Must Be Something Really Embarrassing’ in Biden's Classified Documents Discovered
• Sens. Johnson, Grassley Ask: Does Biden 'Use Non-Governmental Email' to 'Email His Family Members Government Information?' (Jones failed to report that numerous Trump administration officials were found to have used private email addresses to conduct official business)
• Attorney General Garland: ‘Documents Bearing Classification Markings’ Found in Biden’s Delaware Garage
• Oversight Chairman Comer: 'The Democrats' Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost'
• Did Chinese Money Influence Biden Policies? Rep. Comer Requesting Documents From U-Penn
• Levin: ‘This Was a Cover-Up’ That Got Blown Because the Republicans Got Elected
• More Classified Documents Found ‘in a Room Adjacent to’ Biden’s Garage
• Comer on Biden Documents Case: 'It Seems Political...Hypocritical...Like a Double Standard'
• Intel Committee Republican: 'We Have Requested an Analysis of These Documents'
• Rep. Jim Jordan: Why Do Democrats' Lawyers Get to Find and Hand Over Documents?
• Rep. Don Bacon: ‘President Biden Was Caught Throwing Stones’

CNS also pulled its usual stunt of devoting more than one article to pushing the same exact story:

• Garland Names Special Counsel to Investigate Biden’s Handling of Classified Documents
• A.G. Garland Names Special Counsel to Investigate Former V.P. Biden’s Possession of Classified Documents

By contrast, CNS published significantly fewer articles focused on Biden's side of the story in this same time period:

• Biden: 'My Lawyers Have Not Suggested I Ask' What Classified Documents Were Found in Biden Office
• Biden Admits He Kept Documents Marked as Classified in His Garage: ‘It’s Not Like They’re Sitting Out in the Street’
• Biden’s Attorney: ‘These Documents Were Inadvertently Misplaced’
• Schumer: 'Prosecutors Will Get to the Bottom of This, and Let's Let Them Do It, for God's Sake'
• WH Press Secretary: Biden Has Restored Independence in the Department of Justice
• Rep. Adam Schiff: ‘It Was Inadvertent That These Documents Were in These Locations’

Another of these articles, by Jones, quoted Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a "Michigan Democrat who formerly worked as a CIA analyst," as pointing out how Republicans are seizing on the the Biden documents as a "political talking point" -- but then immediately followed it with a statement from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy laughably denying any political motivation "in his choppy fashion."

It wouldn't be CNS if it wasn't mounting some weird, tangentally related attack of Biden over this, and Craig Bannister obliged in a Jan. 13 article:

Despite his insistence that Americans embrace electric vehicles, President Joe Biden treasures his gasoline-powered 1967 Corvette Stingray so much that he stored it next to the documents marked “classified” found at his Delaware home.

Two batches of documents marked “classified” kept by Biden have reportedly been discovered, the second of which Biden says had been kept next to his Corvette in a garage.

Biden admitted at a press conference on Thursday that he had kept documents that bore classification markings next to his Corvette in what he called “a locked garage” at his Delaware home.

The admission prompted the Oil and Gas Association to tweet out a photo and a few facts about Biden’s coveted Corvette – including that it’s not electric:

CNS regularly parrots talking points sent out by the oil and gas industry.

There was also a strange Jan. 13 column by Josh Hammer, who went straight for a "deep state" conspiracy theory:

But perhaps the most pressing question is: Why? Why was there a leak to CBS News just now, over two months after Biden attorneys discovered the first tranche of classified documents deep in the bowels of a Penn Biden Center office? Why has there been such a slow, drip-drip, dramatic leaking and reporting of various classified document tranches throughout this whole week?

It is thoroughly unsurprising that the federal law enforcement apparatus and the corporate media buried the news of Biden's malfeasance on the precipice of the midterm elections. The "Democrat-Media Complex," as the late Andrew Breitbart called it, demands nothing less than such complicity.

But the timing of the leak from various federal law enforcement actors now, just as Biden is beginning his second term, suggests there is real internal turmoil over at the Democratic National Committee. Perhaps someone at the DNC instructed deep state spooks that now would be a particularly propitious time to leak sordid details to the media. Perhaps someone at the DNC thought that Joe Biden did his job by shepherding his party through the midterms without succumbing to the much-feared "red wave," but that he is now disposable and should be replaced at the ballot in 2024 by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). Loath though I am to speculate, it is difficult to think of a sounder explanation as to why, only now, all of this is coming out.

No evidence of this is offered, of course.

Week 2 -- and ignoring Pence

CNS went into its second week of covering the Biden classified documents story the way it covered the first week -- with lots of attacks on Biden:

• Comer: Hunter Biden Lived at Joe Biden's House and 'Paid for a Lot of Living Expenses'
• Rep. Dan Crenshaw: ‘I Think There Should Be Some Grace Given to Ex-Presidents or Ex-Vice Presidents,’ But the Democrats Set the Rules
• Mark Levin on Biden Documents: 'This Was a Cover-Up'
• Republican Lists Some of the 'Unanswered Questions' in Biden/Classified Documents Case; Evidence Destruction?
• Comer on Biden Case: We Want Bank Records, Suspicious Activity Reports, Tax Records
• Rep. Michael Waltz: What Turned Joe Biden's 'High-Priced Attorneys' Into a 'Cleaning Crew?'
• White House Punts on Questions About Biden Classified Documents Probe
• Sen. Ted Cruz: Here's What DOJ Is Really Worried About in the Biden Classified-Documents Case...
• Photos from 2017 Place Hunter Biden in Dad’s Corvette Outside Garage Where President Stored Classified Documents
• More Voters Approve of Special Counsel Looking into Biden’s Handling of Classified Documents than into Trump’s
• Democrat Senate Judiciary Chairman: Biden's Storage of Classified Documents 'Just Unacceptable'
• Sen. Tim Kaine: Biden Investigation 'Is Necessary'; Manchin: 'Unbelievable How This Could Happen'
• Comer: Biden Case 'Has Gone From Being Simply Irresponsible to Downright Scary'
• Reporter to WH Press Secretary: ‘When You Found Out That the FBI Located Even More Classified Materials in Wilmington, Which Four-Letter Word Did You Use?’

And, as in the first week, there were significantly fewer articles that focused on Biden's side of the story:

• WH: ‘Republicans Lose Credibility When They Engage in Fake Outrage’
• Biden: 'I Have No Regrets' About 'Handful of Documents...Filed in the Wrong Place'
• Former Sen. Doug Jones: Biden Shouldn’t Have Disclosed the Finding of Classified Documents Immediately
• White House Press Secretary: ‘DOJ Requested That the Search Not Be Made Public in Advance’
• WH: Republicans ‘Faking Outrage’ Even Though They Defended Biden’s Actions

But when classified documents were discovered at former Vice President Mike Pence's home in Indiana, CNS' tone changed drastically from how it treated Biden. Melanie Arter blandly wrote about it in a Jan. 24 article:

Former Vice President Mike Pence notified the National Archives last Wednesday that a small batch of classified documents were found last week at his residence in Indiana.

According to Pence’s lawyer, the documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s home at the end of the Trump administration, and the former vice president was “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence.”

You will not be surprised to learn that CNS did not publish article after article of Democrats criticizing Pence's alleged recklessness in harboring classified documents or fret about the national security implications. Instead, a Jan. 25 article by Jones complained that the Pence discovery got Biden off the hook and showed a "systemic" issue:

Revelations that another vice president -- Mike Pence -- had classified documents at his home in Indiana is taking some of the media heat off former Vice President and now President Joe Biden -- just as the discovery of classified documents in Biden's possession took some of heat off former President Donald Trump.

"So now this appears systemic," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), now a former member of the House intelligence committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday as the news about Pence broke while he was being interviewed.

"It certainly appears now that there's a systemic problem with former occupants of the presidency and vice presidency having classified information at their homes, when it shouldn't be there; or at their libraries or their university repositories," Schiff told host Andrea Mitchell.

That was followed by a Jan. 26 article by Craig Bannister noting that "the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) formally asked the presidents and vice presidents of the last six administrations to re-check their personal records for any classified documents or presidential records they may “inadvertently” have in their possession."

There was also a Jan. 25 article by Jones featuring Republican Sen. Marco Rubio quipping that "I think the executive branch needs to hire better movers" while referencing document issues involving Trump and Biden -- but not mentioning Pence.

But, really, CNS wanted to get back to keeping the classified-document focus on Biden. A Jan. 25 article by Jones stated:

"We're investigating the Biden family for influence-peddling," Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday, as the discovery of classified documents in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence home prompted media defenders of Joe Biden to describe the problem as "systemic."

More followed:

• Sen. Rick Scott: ‘I Don’t Know How Biden Ended Up with Classified Documents from His Time in the Senate’
• ‘CRITICAL’: Sen. Cruz Calls for FBI to ‘Immediately’ Search Hunter Biden’s Home, Offices for Classified Documents
• Senate Intel Committee Members: 'The Administration Is Stonewalling Congress' on Biden/Trump Classified Documents
• John Kirby Defends Administration's Refusal to Let Senators See Biden's Mishandled Documents
• Sen. Lee: ‘Highly Suspicious’ Biden’s Lawyers Have ‘Unfettered Access’ to Classified Docs, But Intel Cmte. Members Don’t
• Former DNI John Ratcliffe: ‘Democrats Have Been Treated One Way Under the System of Justice and Republicans Differently’
• Sens. Warner, Rubio: 'Our Job Is to Make Sure There's Not an Intelligence Compromise'
• Rubio: I Simply Want to Know What the (Classified) Materials Are'

Because why let the facts get in the way of a partisan narrative?