Why Bombshell News Never Seems To Break Democrats' Way
The parties' different responses to the Hur report provides a study in unflattering contrasts
When reporters got wind that Special Counsel Robert Hur had submitted his final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the White House counsel’s office, and parties of interest on Capitol Hill, scuttlebutt was that this wouldn’t be some dry, by-the-book declination decision.
I was busy writing up my wrap piece on Supreme Court arguments over whether Donald Trump should be disqualified for engaging in insurrection. I didn’t know Hur had chosen to smear Biden; I suspected he, like James Comey before him, had instead chosen to opine on Biden’s document security practices.
Here was my reaction:
Within an hour or so, the ensuing feeding frenzy had taken a slightly unexpected turn. Most Republicans recognized Hur’s freelance musing about Biden’s memory as more potent political material than Biden’s infosec practices. Donald Trump is under indictment for stealing and concealing classified information, after all—which is why he, unlike the rest of his party, careened off into a lonely rant about how Biden was the real state secrets thief.
But my general instinct has been vindicated.
Hur is now negotiating with his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill over what he can testify to and when he can appear at a hearing. Those same Republicans have insisted that the Justice Department release a transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur, so they can clip and circulate any instance in which Biden’s memory failed him.
They are, in other words, a party that cares about the power of information and partisan combat, and they are seizing this opportunity rather than bypassing it.
The contrast with Democratic senators couldn’t be starker or less flattering.