One of the late Justice Scalia’s favorite derogatory shots was to write that the author of a particularly weak legal argument (in his assessment) should hide his head under a bag. I would hope that any Democrat watching the astounding displays of “whataboutism,” “It isn’t what it is,” “gotchas” and ad hominem attacks by their party’s House members would have bags on their heads this morning. How ugly. How dispiriting. How stupid and desperate! How can they continue to support these people?
Prof. Turley, who has emerged in recent years as one of the very few fair, objective and non-partisan political analysts in academia and the legal profession, correctly but too-kindly described the Democrat attacks on the Special Counsel Robert Hur during the congressional hearing on his report on President Biden as “delusional.” The conduct of the worst of the Democrats was much worse than that.
Rep. Gerald Nadler, for example, thought that Donald Trump’s assorted verbal gaffes were relevant to Hur’s report, so he showed a super-cut of them as a preemptive strike, or something. Hur’s report and investigation didn’t involve Trump (I would have ruled Nadler’s cherry-picked video out of order if I had the gavel), and even if it did, Nadler’s intended message was gaslighting: Biden’s mental decline is literally on display every day, every time he speaks or moves. Democrats like Nadler are committed to denying the obvious and trying to shift attention to Trump, who, unlike Biden, has a typical percentage of verbal missteps for any public speaker who emotes spontaneously or frequently. (A Nadler-style compilation could be made of Barack Obama’s gaffes. Or mine.) Nadler and his minions even stooped to including a clip in which Trump said he did not remember saying he had a great memory. Back in 2015, Ethics Alarms discussed several episodes in which Trump either contradicted what he had said earlier or denied that he said it. Nobody who babbles unfiltered like Donald Trump could possibly remember everything he has said. This “gotcha!,” like the rest of the video, was meaningless.
Getting even further afield and shamelessly so was Representative Jamie Raskin (D- Maryland), who—now pay attention here!—thought that the hearing about the Special Counsel’s report on Biden’s unauthorized and illegal storage of classified documents should focus on Trump’s periodic compliments of foreign strongmen and his recent meeting with the far-right leader of Hungary, Victor Orban. “It’s not a memory test for President Biden,” he said. “It’s a memory test for all of America. Do we remember fascism? Do we remember Nazism? Communism and totalitarianism?”
Sure, we remember totalitarianism, Congressman. We’ve been watching your party embrace its methods for at least the last four years.
Hur, admirably, kept pointing out that his investigation was of Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.
It’s hard to choose, but I think the most offensive of the Democrat h…Palace Guards determined to convince the public that Joe Biden is as virtuous as Albert Schweitzer and as mentally acute as Georg Bernard Shaw was honorary Squad member Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D-Washington), who kept saying that Hur had “exonerated” Biden, when he had only said that a jury probably wouldn’t convict a doddering old man of committing the crimes he in fact committed. “I did not exonerate him; that word does not appear in the report,” Hur said. Other Democrats kept trying to sneak in the E-word, which Turley found ridiculous. “[Y]ou had Hur say ‘I did not exonerate the president’ and then Democrats would say ‘okay, so you exonerated the president’ and he would say ‘no, I didn’t’ and they would say ‘thank you for that, with that exoneration’…The fact is that Hur tried over and over again to distinguish between his findings, which is that he was not confident he could convict if he did bring any charges, and the statement of Democrats that the president was cleared.”
Bingo. And this was all designed to confuse the public and give the mainstream media misleading quotes to cite in their reporting. The New York Times was relatively restrained in its bias, which it exhibited by mostly ignoring the worst of the Democrats’ deflections and misdirection, and, as usual, defaulting to “Republicans pounce.” For example, Hur’s denial that he “exonerated” Biden was “a line that is likely to be seized upon by Mr. Trump and his supporters in the coming weeks.” Good ol’ Times!
Ethics Villain Rep. Adam Schiff-–he’s running for U.S. Senator in California when he has thoroughly disgraced his current home in Congress—accused Hur of slanting his reports with his “personal, prejudicial, subjective opinion of the president when you knew it would be amplified by his political opponent.” “You were not born yesterday,” Schiff said. “You understood exactly what you were doing.” Hur, admirably eschewing the Nikki Haley verdict “Scum!” which Schiff clearly deserved (again), replied, “What you are suggesting is that I shape, sanitize, omit portions of my reasoning and explanations to the attorney general for political reasons..” only to be interrupted by Schiff saying, “No, I suggest that you not shape your report for political reasons and that’s what you did.” Again remaining civil (“My, what a shameless asshole you are, Congresman!” was justified at that point) Hur replied, “That did not happen, Congressman. That did not happen.”
Here is another Ethics Villain, Rep. Eric Swallwell as he questioned Hur:
SWALWELL: A lot has changed since 2018 for the person who appointed you, former President Trump. Since you were appointed, he was impeached for leveraging 350 U.S. — $350 million U.S. taxpayer dollars over Ukraine to get dirt on President Biden. He was then in peach the second time for inciting and insurrection. He was charged for possessing classified documents and obstructing justice. He was charged for paying for the silence of a porn star. He was charged in Georgia for his role in January 6. He was charged in the District of Columbia for his role in January 6. He owes $400 million to the State of New York for defrauding the state through his taxes. And he has been judged a rapist. [Note: He has not been “judged a rapist,” but this is the latest Big Lie being parroted by Democrats and their media lackeys.) You want to be perceived, understandably, as credible. And so, I want to first see if you will pledge to not accept an appointment from Donald Trump if he is elected again as President?
HUR: Congressman, I don’t — I am not here to testify —
SWALWELL: Considering what I just laid out.
HUR: I’m here to talk about the report and the work that went into it.
SWALWELL: But you don’t want to be associated with that guy again, do you?
HUR: Congressman, I’m not here to offer any opinions about what may or may not happen in the future. I’m here to talk about the work that went into the report, which I stand by.
SWALWELL: There were no limits on you as to what you could charge President Biden by the attorney general, is that right?
HUR: The decisions that I made that are reflected in the report are my own.
SWALWELL: And you did not bring any charges. Is that correct?
HUR: Correct.
SWALWELL: There are no limits on John Durham and his investigation of the prior administration, when he was special counsel, is that right?
HUR: I don’t believe I have the information required to answer the question about the Durham investigation.
SWALWELL: Well, he sat in the same chair that you’re sitting in. He told us that he also investigated President Biden and President Obama and did not bring any charges. President Biden sat for an interview with you over two days for approximately 10 hours, is that right?
HUR: A little over five hours, Congressman.
SWALWELL: Over two days?
HUR: Correct.
SWALWELL: You know, that’s in sharp contrast to a guy who did not sit for an interview. When the Mueller investigation took place. That was Donald Trump did not sit for an interview when he was impeached in this committee room by the judiciary committee.
Did not sit for an interview when the second impeachment occurred, and he was invited to sit for an interview for his role in January 6. And did not sit for an interview in the January 6, classified — in the January 6 case for the classified documents case…lso has not sat for an interview in his own subpoena. But Joe Biden has.
To which the appropriate response would be “Well whoop-de-frickin’-do!” Hur’s task was to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, not Donald Trump, not the contrast between Trump and Biden, not anything involving Trump at all. Democrats, by implying otherwise, were attempting to confuse and mislead the public to deflect attention from Hur’s conclusions.
Get the bags.
Ethics Alarms 
It is tragic that the 2024 election comes down to Biden v Trump. Are these the best this counry can come up with? Like many, I will hold my nose and vote for Trump. God help the USA.
And the spinning that Democrat-corrupted commenters on news sites are doing right now reflects their indoctrination in the practice of “whataboutism” and their ilk.
It is truly ridiculous that someone who was hired to do one specific job had to sit there and be grilled over what someone else did in a previous hearing, what he might or might not do in the future and what biases he might have based on who appointed him.
I’m such a sap. That kind of blatant dishonesty still surprises me. Still. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 7,854,431 times, I’m an idiot.
I would have loved for Hur to have said, “With all due respect, Congressman, I realize that you feel you must pander to your base, especially in the presence of the news media, but I am only here to give testimony regarding how then-Vice-President Biden handled classified documents. How the investigation into former President Trump’s case was handled by a different special counsel, what my plans are or are not for the future or who hired me is irrelevant.”
I’m trying to find words for my disgust at these people. I assume they asked the questions they did, irrelevant to the proceedings or not, because the media would record and play those talking points, and not Hur’s responses. And they trust that the vast majority of the populace wouldn’t bother to watch entire hearing or read the transcripts. I can think of only two explanations why they would stoop to this behavior.
First, they are so confident that no one will successfully call them out that they can make whatever wild, inappropriate, or off-topic statements they want. In which case we’re a short step away from that single-party rule where facts have truly ceased to matter, and only the party line is acceptible.
Second, they are so absolutely desperate to spin the Hur report, in any way they can grasp, in any way that draws attention away from Biden’s declining cognition, that they’ll stoop however low it takes. In this case, there’s hope, because maybe this means the public IS paying attention, and the one-party narrative is falling to pieces.
I fear it is the former; I pray it is the latter. But I’m open to hear alternative explanations.
This is my belief, too. They knew the media would play and replay the Congressperson’s questions and statements ad nauseum.
And the population isn’t paying attention. The comments on news sites regarding this hearing are full of rationalizations, among them are many versions of ”I know the day and month my dad died, but I can’t remember the year, either. It’s normal”, as well as the whataboutism arguments of Trump not turning over his classified documents while Biden turned over his immediately, etc.
First of all, it’s sad if you can’t remember the date your mother, father, brother, sister died. But, even if you can’t, you are not the President of the United States. President Biden has a great many important things to remember that are in this country’s vital interests. If he cannot remember the year his son died, a death that gets regurgitated every time he tries to empathize with a grieving person or duck out of a question he can’t answer, how can he be expected to remember the many serious pieces of information required of him?
That’s not even getting into the big difference between being President and being Vice-President. The rules are different. Trump believed he had the right to declassify those documents and had the right to keep them. Biden had no right to keep classified documents at all and no power to keep them.
The left-leaning population believes these arguments because they are constantly being repeated by the Democrats and their allies in the news media and other notable professions.
It is funny because Hur WAS pandering to politics and that is why he let Biden off. He had to have a plausible reason for it, of course. Biden’s handling of classified documents was worse than Trumps on numerous counts. So, you need to have some plausible reason for prosecuting the lesser offense and not the greater one and it came down to the “don’t think we could convince a jury this guy knows what is going on”. That is about the only way you could get out of that.
Now it looks like Hur is being attacked for doing what he was supposed to do and being forced out. He should have just written “Biden knowingly retained classified documents in numerous, insecure locations and allowed unauthorized people to access them. He read classified material to his biographer. He had no declassification authority and admitted that he was not supposed to have the material. This is in contrast to Donald Trump, who claims to have declassified all the material when he had declassification authority and stored the materials in an FBI-approved location with security. That is why Donald Trump should be prosecuted and Joe Biden should not.” All the Democrats would have read it and said “See, we told you that is how it should be.” while everyone else would realize that the system is rigged and there is nothing you can do about it.
Michael,
I’m not sure I agree. Maybe I’m a naif, but was there simply no better explanation that Hur could have found that would have let Biden off the hook? Wasn’t the analysis that Biden was too senile to be convicted a greater blow than, for example, saying that he couldn’t recommend pressing charges because it is against policy to indict a sitting president? Kick the can down the road, and maybe it will all blow over and the public will have forgotten by the time Biden leaves office in 2028 (or before)?
The results of Hur’s investigation came in more quickly than the Durham probe, and at much less cost.
Still, I hope that Hur was paid enough extra for being insulted personally for doing his ethical best to study the case and render an easily understood and very believable conclusion.