Republicans on Sunday shows reveal how scared they are about Trump's document scandal
Republicans appeared on Sunday morning news shows, making it clear that they're not comfortable with Donald Trump's latest scandal, the New York Times round-up explained.
Monday begins the third week since the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. What they recovered was a cache of government documents that Trump stole to take with him upon leaving the White House. A number of the documents were so top secret that the government has been unable to describe them to the public.
Since then, the scandal has grown into such a substantial issue that Republican officials note it has become difficult for the 2022 campaign. In a Sunday evening rant on his social media site, Trump alleged that the whole issue was an attempt by Democrats to win the election. The problem with his argument, however, is that the effort by the National Archives began in May 2021. For seven months, he refused to turn over documents. By the time he did, it was discovered he had stolen classified information that he wouldn't release back to the government. The Justice Department filed a subpoena, but Trump refused. Finally, 14 months after the initial contact, the DOJ filed a search warrant and took the documents back.
If Trump had simply complied with a subpoena, the case likely wouldn't have seen the light of day. Only after Trump refused to turn over the stolen information did the FBI show up. Even then, they didn't wear jackets with FBI across the back. It wasn't even revealed that they were there until Trump revealed it himself.
Republican Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox's Maria Bartiromo that Trump was lying about the documents being declassified.
Speaking on Sunday to ABC's "This Week," outgoing Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said that Trump should have turned the documents over to begin with.
"What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and, less than 100 days before the election, suddenly we’re talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program," Blunt complained. The answer, of course, is that Trump refused to turn over the documents for the last 14 months.
"Former President Trump has been out of office for going on two years now," Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) said on CNN. "You think this is a coincidence just happening a few months before the midterm elections?"
It's unclear why Trump refused to comply with the subpoena after a year of negotiating with the government. Since the scandal, Trump has been raising buckets of cash, proclaiming himself as the victim of the government coming for "his" documents.
Sununu went on to say that the US's student debt situation wasn't a crisis.
“Some of the president’s biggest cheerleaders — Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan — have gone kind of silent,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told "Meet the Press" on NBC. “That tells you all you need to know.”
Behind closed doors, Republican strategists are now managing expectations for what was once predicted to be a "red wave" in November. At one point, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), a House Speaker hopeful, predicted they'd win 60 Republican seats in the midterm election and take back the Senate. Now Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is managing expectations that they'll likely lose the seats they hoped could win them back the body.
Unmentioned, however, is the impact of the Supreme Court on the 2022 election. Several states reported a disproportionate gender disparity in voter registration information with more women signing up to vote after the Dobbs decision was passed down.
See the New York Times round-up here.
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