Joe Biden Might Still Choose To Stand Aside—Here's How
Joe Biden Might Still Choose To Stand Aside—Here's How
Biden allies who want him to retire should try appealing to his sense of historic largeness rather than to polls and the needs of the Democratic Party.
Prior to last Thursday’s nightmare presidential debate, House Republicans had been using all their congressional might to press the Department of Justice to release audio of President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
They made it the focus of multiple hearings, and even held Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for rebuffing their demands.
Republicans were, as usual, operating in bad faith. Their aim was to subvert DOJ rules in order to publicize select clips from the interview that made Biden seem disoriented, and my view, then as now, was that Garland was right to uphold the policy.
DOJ rules against publicizing evidence in cases of uncharged people wasn’t adopted to protect Biden. It’s long-standing. There’s no exception for politicians, and if there were, it would embarrass many House Republicans, who’ve been investigated for everything from conspiring to overturn the 2020 election to sex trafficking.
Yet, with Democratic leadership closing ranks around Biden, the cynical part of me hopes the audio leaks before the Democratic convention, so that the pressure he faces to suspend his faltering candidacy increases. (Just as cynically, Republicans have grown much quieter about the importance of this audio, because they want Democrats to make Biden’s nomination official).
Short of a breach along those lines, though, there’s another piece of Hur’s report that bears on how Biden might be persuaded to do the patriotic thing and yield to a candidate with a better chance of winning. And this approach wouldn’t entail yet another illegitimate DOJ intervention into electoral politics.