CNN's Jake Tapper confronts Trump documents case lawyer on ex-president's 'obstruction'

With President Joe Biden getting a criminal hall pass, former President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer in the federal classified documents case locked horns with CNN’s Jake Tapper over a critical detail: they may both be pack rats, but one president allegedly obstructed and the other didn’t.

“For just as Joe Biden should have returned the documents the moment he's telling his ghost writer, ‘Hey, I found the classified stuff downstairs!’ so, too, would Trump have had to do it,” said Timothy Parlatore, who defended the 45th president after a federal grand jury in Miami in June 2023 decided to indict him for stashing away classified documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and then rebuffing the government’s request to return them.

Both Trump and his fellow co-defendant aide Nalt Nauta have pleaded not guilty.

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On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur decided to not bring criminal charges against President Joe Biden for knowingly keeping classified documents.

Parlatore claims Biden had the benefit of “seeing what Trump did” so he could avoid making the same moves.

Tapper pressed Parlatore about the fact that his former client stands accused of intentionally trying to keep the files and lying about them when formally approached by the feds.

But Parlatore says Trump was packing up in haste after losing a bid for s second term in what he called “a very chaotic time” whereas Biden “it appears intentionally took these things with him."

Tapper interjected, “Because he thought he could even though he was wrong.”

Then Parlatore acknowledged that each played different legal cards despite holding similar hands.

“And that's the difference is that he took them, whereas Donald Trump, it's more about what did he do once he found them,” said Parlatore.

Parlatore added that Jack Smith and his team have been “making significant distinctions with the alleged obstruction.”

Parlatore added “It's the allegation, it's not proven yet, but those allegations certainly do make it appear much more you know, damning on the one side.”

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