It was just two weeks ago that former Vice President Mike Pence was demanding a special counsel be appointed to look into President Joe Biden‘s handling of classified documents, after a small number had been found in an office at the Penn-Biden Center. Now some are calling for DOJ to appoint a special counsel to investigate the former Trump vice president’s handling of classified documents, after CNN reported Tuesday on the dozen or so classified documents that were found in Pence’s Indiana home and turned over to the FBI and the National Archives.
Pence, who is expected to launch a 2024 presidential run, had taken to the right-wing media talk circuit, demanding “equal treatment” by the U.S. Dept. of Justice for President Biden, after Attorney General Merrick Garland had appointed a special counsel in November to investigate ex-president Donald Trump’s possibly criminal handling of classified documents.
Attorney General Garland ultimately, and exceptionally quickly, did appoint a special counsel to look into Biden’s classified documents handling, leading Pence to say he had been “deeply troubled” before that happened.
READ MORE: Watch: Top Trump Ally Lindsey Graham Defends Biden In Classified Docs Probe
“Look, there’s equal treatment in the law [that] is at the very center of the expectation of the American people,” Pence, calling for a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents, had told right wing personality Hugh Hewitt exactly two weeks ago, on January 10.
He also blasted the Biden administration for the DOJ executing a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, last summer. And he criticized the media for what he wrongly called “turning a deaf ear” to the Biden classified documents issue, which is false.
“Well, as I said last summer when the home of a former president of the United States, you know, was raided by FBI agents, I was deeply troubled by that action at the time. And this double standard is just as troubling. You know, there’s that old saying that if they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all,” Pence told Hewitt, despite there being no double standard.
“And Hugh, this is, whether it be the administration or whether it be the media papering over this, look, it was a massive overreach by the FBI, a massive overreaction this summer to execute a search warrant at the personal residence of a former president of the United States, and I said so. But having now created that standard and now abandoned that standard when the current president of the United States is found to have had classified documents in his possession after leaving office, I think it just, I have no words right now. It’s just incredibly frustrating to me.”
He also continued to berate the Biden administration and the media.
“You know, the reality is that now they’ve, you know, what they have unleashed now has the threat of coming back on them,” he said of the Biden administration, for allowing DOJ to execute the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. “But the willingness of the national media to just turn away and turn a deaf ear to the Biden, to the disclosures that when Vice President Biden left office, he left with classified documents as well, it just shows you, it’s like I said before. If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”
Pence has repeatedly denied having any classified documents, which we now know was false.
Pence wasn’t done attacking President Biden.
Two days later, on Jan. 12, he went on Fox News Business, using nearly the same language, telling former Trump White House official Larry Kudlow that “equal treatment under the law is at the very center of American jurisprudence,” and applauding the decision to appoint a special counsel to look into the Biden classified documents.
“And earlier this week, I called for that. I welcome the decision by Attorney General Garland, who will appoint a special counsel. If we have a special counsel reviewing classified materials that were found at Mar-a-Lago, we need to have a special counsel in this case, and that’s progress.”
Pence said he could “speak from personal experience” about the importance of properly handling classified documents.
“The handling of classified materials, and the nation’s secrets is very serious matter. And as a former Vice President of the United States I can speak from personal experience but the attention that ought to be paid to those materials when you’re in office, and after you leave office. And clearly, that did not take place in this case.”
The difference between the Biden classified documents issue and the Trump classified documents case is huge.
President Biden reported all classified documents found to DOJ and the National Archives and had then sent to NARA immediately.
Trump reportedly had classified documents and thousands of other items belonging to the federal government shipped from the White House to his residence and resort in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, and according to several former officials, helped pack some of the boxes himself.
He then spent over a year lying about what he had at Mar-a-Lago, and repeatedly refused to return the stolen items.
Some experts say a special counsel should be appointed for Pence’s handling of classified documents.
Law professor, MSNBC legal contributor, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance says, “No reason to treat Pence differently” from President Biden.
National security attorney Mark S. Zaid says Pence should allow the FBI “to voluntarily search his offices & residence for additional classified docs.”
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