In the era of Richard Nixon, reporters were eager to gather and report facts, infer and assert duplicity, dishonesty, and presidential dissembling. In the era of Joe Biden, they do the reverse – work overtime to plead ignorance as evidence continues to mount of serious criminality.
Watergate Judge John Sirica, not satisfied that facts added up to presidential innocence, pressed reporters and prosecutors to “follow the money,” documents, witnesses, and timelines. His insistence that the truth mattered, that criminality might be afoot, proved prescient.
Today, we have an inverted world. We have major news outlets omitting, mischaracterizing, and defensively pretending important facts do not matter, trivial ones do. Thus, the New York Times reports another search of Biden properties – this time a Beach House – “was undertaken with the cooperation of the president and his legal team,” FBI “found no classified documents …took some materials, including handwritten notes.”
We are treated to a Biden lawyer, effectively saying “nothing to see here,” just a search “with the president’s full support and cooperation,” done “under … standard procedures,” no “public notice.” We are expected to yawn, and say “Ah, just another everyday FBI search of a president.”
At what point do we say, “Hey, wait a minute …” Maybe now. Say it like it is.
This is the fourth location tied to the Bidens being searched. It is being searched because taking, holding, and hiding classified documents of interest to foreign adversaries is suspicious. It is more so when the president’s (former vice president’s) son – was being paid by a foreign adversary and had access. That smells fishy.
It is being done because classified documents are kept in safes, not closets, garages, or offices underwritten by China through a university that paid tens of millions to hire and make space for that same former VP. That too smells fishy.
It is being done because vice presidents do not fly their sons on Air Force Two to China, Ukraine, or anywhere to sign deals with foreign governments, then deny knowledge that occurred. Very fishy.
It is being done because vice presidents do not pressure foreign governments to call off investigations into companies paying the same son – under investigation by a foreign government. They do not threaten loss of a billion dollars in US aid to tank the investigating prosecutor. Smell old fish?
It is being done because vice presidents sons, flown overseas by dad to sign million-dollar deals for expertise they lack, are not ordinarily given access to places where classified documents have been secreted – could easily be accessed for a paying foreign government. Smell the stink?
These searches are being done because circumstantial evidence builds in support of a serious crime, active involvement or complicity in sale of classified documents by a former vice president – now president – to a foreign government, oddly corroborated by a computer belonging to the VP’s son.
In short, this is not a “mishandling” matter, but something far worse, a case that involves a sitting president, former vice president, and family in criminal activity, sale of high office for profit, or worse.
No one will say it, but facts are accumulating – and they do not look good for Joe Biden. Sherlock Holmes is not needed to see the circumstantial case against Joe Biden. Lack of recall, mental decline, and other excuses will not hold.
But wider questions now surface. People wonder if these facts were known by FBI leaders and Democrats as early as 2019, only now being offered to dump the octogenarian for other options.
Why, for example, was the search suddenly done in early November? Who put those documents there? Why was their discovery two years into this administration? Why covered-up – because it was a cover-up – before midterms? Why covered by both the White House and FBI?
Why was time permitted between then and now for other Biden offices, university offices, beach house, and the son’s home to be “cleaned out” – by anyone who wanted to dispose of inconvenient classified documents? Why were these not swiftly identified as crime scenes, secured?
Returning to skewed reporting, what difference does “cooperation” make when criminality seems afoot? What difference – think about it – does “standard procedure” and “public notice” make, if the criminal suspects, president and family, are given “private notice,” ample time to clean up?
In stark contrast, whether you like Trump or not, how can it be appropriate that his offers of “full cooperation” were ignored, then despite no evidence of foreign bribery, storage in a safe, and his presidential status – permitting declassification – he was subject to a surprise, heavily-armed, 30-agent, nine-hour search of his home (and wife’s closet), medical records and passports taken, on what seems an illegal “general warrant,” presumptively in violation of the 4th Amendment? Something … stinks.
Jut odd. The idea that someone – who? – decided to pry open a closet and boxes near the corvette right now, as 2024 looms, raises questions about a feint-within-a-feint. Does someone finally want to “out” the Bidens and get old Joe to resign with dignity – or even in disgrace – so others can take center stage?
Truth is, while these are important questions to which we deserve answers, leading media outlets want you to forget all this. Judge John Sirica would call these facts “evidence of crime,” and urge we follow the money, documents, witnesses, and timeline. Accountability for a republic is like oxygen for fish. Without it, things begin to stink.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.