‘Lock Her Up’ vs. ‘But Her Emails!’

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Friday, February 11, 2022

 

Did Trump pull a Hillary and remove classified documents from their proper location? It seems possible. Here’s the always-even-handed Jonathan Turley:

 

According to a new report by The Washington Post, the National Archives had to retrieve a large number of boxes from Mar-a-Lago that were unlawfully removed by President Trump or his staff upon leaving the White House. There are strict laws on the preservation of presidential documents, laws that President Trump was repeatedly accused of flaunting during his presidency. However, the most serious element of this latest allegation is that the removed material included clearly marked classified information, including some at the Top Secret level.

 

We still do not have confirmation of the allegation from the National Archives but Trump himself acknowledged that boxes were removed and called the exchange friendly and routine. There are often conflicts over what material can be removed by departing presidents, though the reports are suggesting that this conflict was more serious in light of the status of the documents.

 

The allegation that Trump removed classified information is a potential criminal violation. It is also highly ironic given Trump’s long use of “Lock Her Up” to refer to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for official and classified material.

 

If Trump did this, he should absolutely be . . . well, what should he be? Certainly, he should be termed a grotesque hypocrite for arguing that Hillary should be “locked up” for a crime he committed himself. But, beyond that? Hillary was not, in fact, “locked up.” She wasn’t even prosecuted. I thought she probably should have been prosecuted, just as I think that, if there’s evidence that Trump did this, it would be reasonable to prosecute him, too. But that isn’t what has happened in this area when the person of interest is extremely powerful. So what next? Goose, meet gander.

 

Neither is the hypocrisy here unique to Donald Trump. The New York Times notes today that “among Republicans, once so forceful about the issue of mishandling documents, there was little sign of outrage.” This is true. But it also works the other way around. Many of the people who are now pointing to this story with a frustrated “but her emails!” spent 2015 and 2016 flatly denying that Hillary did anything wrong, rejecting the claim that there were any grounds for an indictment, and, in some cases, going so far as to suggest that any prosecution of a presidential candidate (or failed presidential candidate) would turn America into a “banana republic.” Well, Trump is a presidential candidate (and a failed presidential candidate), too, and, whether it should be or not, the precedent here is clearly against prosecution. Careful what you wish for, I guess.