End Of Day - 1/25/2023 - Car-a-Lago Grows, Major Differences, Dangerously Close

Car-a-Lago Grows

I’m sure you’ve heard the news that former Vice President Mike Pence recently discovered classified documents at his Indiana home. The National Archives was immediately informed of their existence, and the FBI quickly retrieved them.

Donald Trump instantly jumped to Pence’s defense, posting this statement on Truth Social, “Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!”

If anything good is coming out of all this, maybe it’s that whatever breach existed between the two men is on its way to being healed.

Major Differences & Double Standards

That said, there are clear differences in all these cases. Let me just remind you of some truths here.

First, Washington has a serious overclassification problem.

Second, every president since at least Jimmy Carter has had disputes with the National Archives over certain documents in their possession. There is really nothing new about this.

But we now have four cases of prominent people accused of mishandling classified documents – Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, and you may have forgotten about the fourth, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary put classified material on a personal server in her home, likely in a deliberate effort to evade the law. She sent and received classified information through that server, some of which ended up on disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop.

When the Clinton “Servergate” story broke, she engaged in a massive coverup, physically destroying cell phones, deleting tens of thousands of messages and then wiping her server with BleachBit.

There were no raids on the Clinton estate in Chappaqua, and the FBI gave Hillary and everyone around her a pass. As a result, she’s often left out of this whole conversation, yet she sits in judgment of Trump.

In stark contrast, Trump was engaged in ongoing negotiations with the National Archives. He voluntarily gave up 15 boxes of material during those negotiations. Trump’s documents were securely locked down at the FBI’s request.

But the FBI raided Trump’s home anyway. And then leaked staged photos and lies to the media for days about the documents and what was in them.

Biden has had classified documents in his possession for well more than a decade – dating all the way back to his days in the Senate. That’s astonishing! I guarantee you senators don’t have classified documents in their homes for years.

That jarring fact further underscores the necessity of opening up Biden’s Senate papers at the University of Delaware, which I called for two weeks ago when his “Car-a-Lago” scandal initially erupted. I am pleased to report that others are now joining that call.

Biden had classified documents all over the place, from an old office to his home and even in his garage!

Sources say the information involved intelligence memos on China, Ukraine and Iran. In two cases, those were countries where Hunter Biden had major business dealings, and there are serious questions as to whether he may have used them to enrich the “Big Guy.”

Now we have news that Mike Pence also found classified documents in his home.

Pence is such an honorable man that he was mocked for not meeting alone with women. When he found documents in his house, he immediately turned them over.

The differences here are extraordinary, but the media will never lay it out this way, and will instead do its best to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

Finally Some Accountability

As we and others have documented, scores of churches and pro-life organizations have been attacked and vandalized since Justice Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked last May to the left-wing media. Months passed without anyone being held accountable.

Well, the Department of Justice announced yesterday that it has finally indicted two pro-abortion extremists for attacking three pregnancy resource centers in Florida. Not surprisingly, the two pro-abortion extremists appear to have connections to the violent neo-Marxist group Antifa.

The two suspects are facing charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance or FACE Act for “using threats of force to intimidate and interfere with the employees of a reproductive health services facility.”

Speaking of the FACE Act, the trial of pro-life activist Mark Houck begins today. Houck is being charged under the FACE Act because he got into a confrontation with an obnoxious abortion clinic escort who threatened Houck’s son while they were outside an abortion clinic.

Local officials rightly refused to prosecute Houck, because the FACE Act was never intended to apply to “escorts” outside the clinics. Senators were very clear during the debate on the FACE Act that it “allows legal relief only to clinic patients and personnel,” and that “escorts” did not qualify as “personnel.”

The case against Houck should be dismissed and I pray it will be. But the pro-abortion Biden Administration is determined to persecute pro-life activists.

Dangerously Close

The “Doomsday Clock” is getting dangerously close to Armageddon. Yesterday, representatives from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the clock to 90 seconds from midnight – the closest it’s ever been.

After the 2020 election, we were told over and over again that “the adults were back in charge.” Well, according to these scientists (and we’re supposed to trust the science!) we’re not any safer as a result of Joe Biden’s leadership.

In fact, we’re worse off. Worse than the “warmonger” Ronald Reagan, worse than the “idiot” George W. Bush and worse than the “maniac” Donald Trump.

The main reason for the dramatic change in the Doomsday Clock under Joe Biden is the war in Ukraine, which is being fought on the border of Russia.

I realize there is a lot of support for the war, and I understand that Putin must be held in check. But I remain deeply concerned that the situation continues to escalate, with a growing risk that it could go nuclear.

I have yet to hear a credible conservative leader explain to me why we should trust a demented president (who surrendered to the Taliban) and an unstable Russian leader of being capable of preventing the worst nightmare scenarios.

The Ukrainian war is also seriously draining our supplies of vital weapons, potentially leaving us and our allies vulnerable to surprise attacks by communist China or Iran.

At the very least, I would urge our Republican friends in Congress to introduce a simple piece of legislation: For every dollar we send to protect the borders of Ukraine, we spend an additional dollar to secure our southern border.

Make the Democrats vote against that bill and explain to American citizens why they care more about the people of Kyiv than the people of San Antonio, El Paso and Yuma.

And So It Begins

The race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination is under way. Donald Trump will address the New Hampshire Republican Party Saturday morning, and hold a rally in Columbia, South Carolina, later that day.

Other high-profile Republicans are seriously considering jumping into the race. Potential candidates (listed alphabetically) include:

Former Ambassador John Bolton
Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley
Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem
Former Vice President Mike Pence
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Florida Senator Rick Scott
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott
New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, and
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.

A recent poll of Utah Republicans tested 12 potential names, including many listed above. Here are the results:

Trump 42%
DeSantis 29%
Pence 11%

No other candidate received double digit support. (Somehow, Liz Cheney got 6%.)

Looking ahead to the general election, two polls (here and here) this week found Trump beating Joe Biden, while DeSantis leads Biden in one poll and essentially ties Biden in the other.