I am so confused.
Yesterday, President Joe Biden chastised a reporter for asking a question about the classified document scandal he has created for his presidency by haphazardly storing Top Secret national security documents in his garage.
After claiming there were more important things that he should be discussing, he went on to read a prepared statement that his lawyers had provided him.
Just the day before, White House press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre deflected question after question from an increasingly intense White House press corps. Her explanation was that the White House did not want to get in the way of an ongoing investigation.
Oh wait, I'm sorry. It's not an investigation, according to the White House. It's just a "review." Last I checked, the Attorney General doesn't appoint a special counsel to conduct a "review."
But back to our plucky little press secretary at the White House. She deflected every question posed to her with the same "I refer you to the Justice Department" or "I refer you to the White House counsel's office" response.
President Biden and the White House communications team claim that they're not going to address any of these questions because they don't want to disrupt the work of the Justice Department or the work of the special counsel's office.
At the same time, they claim they did absolutely nothing wrong and that everything is on the up and up and there was no mishandling of classified documents, and that either way, they're a lot better than Trump because he's just a mean orange man who tweets mean things.
That's basically their line of defense at this point
But let's play this out logically, shall we?
If Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong, why does he have to read a prepared statement from his lawyers?
If Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong, why is he resistant to answering questions?
If Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong, why is his press secretary deflecting every benign innocuous question about the matter?
If Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong, why doesn't he hold an open-ended press conference fielding every single question that any reporter might have about the matter?
If Joe Biden has the truth on his side, why should he be hesitant to answer every question any of us might have?
If Joe Biden has the truth on his side, why can he only read from a carefully prepared statement?
If Joe Biden has the truth on his side and he did absolutely nothing wrong, how could his answers or his press secretaries' answers to any of these questions get in the way of the Justice Department's work?
The investigation (or even "review" if you want to be generous) of Biden's handling of classified materials and his sloppy storage of national security secrets could only be aided by hearing from the president and having him answer obvious questions.
I mean, if he really wants to help the Justice Department and the special counsel, he should start answering questions immediately. You would think he would want to get this thing over with.
He's in the right, after all. He didn't do anything wrong…
He has the truth on his side!
So let's have every question asked and answered, get the truth out there so the special counsel's office can finish its review and then we can move on.
I'm so confused.
The president and his entire White House assure us that he did nothing wrong and state secrets were never in jeopardy, and nobody had access to any of the sensitive material, and did I mention the president did nothing wrong and he has the truth on his side?
Yeah, that's right. The president did nothing wrong and has the truth on his side.
So you can understand why I'm so confused. When somebody has the truth on their side, they're eager to tell the truth. They're eager to speak out for themselves.
They're eager to answer every question so that nobody jumps to hasty conclusions like he left national security documents in his garage where his crackhead son could have access to them and possibly share them with our foreign enemies in China.
Hypothetically.
Aren't you confused?
The president did nothing wrong. He has the truth on his side. This whole thing is a silly little kerfuffle and a media-made right-wing attack job.
Right? Obviously.
So why is he just reading those prepared statements? Why has he lawyered up? Why do they stonewall? Why do they deflect? Why don't they answer basic questions?
Gosh, I'm so confused.