McCarthy deflects questions about new Trump obstruction charges
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks at a news conference as the House prepares to leave for its August recess
By Morgan Rimmer and Haley Talbot, CNN
(CNN) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy deflected questions about the additional charges filed Thursday against former President Donald Trump in the case alleging mishandling of classified documents during his time in the White House, instead pointing to President Joe Biden.
In his latest defense of Trump, McCarthy questioned why Biden had classified documents from his time as a senator and why the president hasn’t been indicted, but would not engage on the new charges that Trump is facing.
“What concerns me is you have a sitting president that has a situation like this, but even worse, that had documents, but nothing’s happened,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju. “The president, when he was a senator, he took a document. How many years is that and there’s been no prosecution?”
His comments come after Special counsel Jack Smith brought additional charges against the former president in the Mar-a-Lago case. In the updated indictment, prosecutors allege that two Trump employees – aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira – attempted to delete security camera footage at the resort after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for it.
Trump, who already faced 37 criminal charges in the case, was charged with an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.
McCarthy continued, “This is why everybody sits back and says, ‘What are these two, two tiers of justice right?’ And then you look, anything when it comes to the Biden Inc. family, they get a whole different treatment.”
Pressed on the difference between the obstruction charges and the allegations of mishandling documents, McCarthy said, “it’s not two different issues. How has one keep being indicted and another not?”
McCarthy has repeatedly defended Trump and used his position as speaker to boost efforts supporting the former President. In one recent example, CNN reported earlier this month that McCarthy told Trump in a private phone call that he personally backed the idea of expunging Trump’s two impeachments and would bring it up to the conference to gauge support, a source said. McCarthy this week also floated the idea of launching an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
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CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.
