CNN's Jim Acosta clashed with Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) on Sunday as the host pressed on the seriousness of the former president's classified documents scandal.
This week, Donald Trump made a veiled threat about not putting him in jail, specifically saying it "would be very dangerous" if special counsel Jack Smith sent him to jail. As a point of fact, a jury will decide whether or not to send Trump to jail.
Burchett claimed that he doesn't see the right-wing rioting because, "I know the conservative movement is just really tired of burning the country down and seeing it burn down all over."
He claimed that the Trump threats are nothing more than "New York bravado" but "every time he says it his numbers go up."
"Yeah, but why aren't more Republicans calling him out and saying don't do that?" asked Acosta. "I mean, the last time he was whipping things up like this, we had an attack on the Capitol. Shouldn't he just knock it off?"
Burchett confessed it would probably be best, but it isn't who Trump is.
"If he was quiet about it all, we wouldn't be talking about it, and his numbers wouldn't be going up again," said the congressman. "It's just him being him, and I hoped to heck he wouldn't do it."
Acosta then asked him about demands to defund the federal law enforcement at the DOJ.
Burchett confirmed he's still a believer in pulling the funding "at certain levels." He went on to say that the Steele Dossier was false and there is "a $10 million payout robbery" for the Bidens. He then explained, those "are technically not documented, but yet nobody seems to pay those any attention."
Ironically, last week, Burchett complained that Hunter Biden was "always in our face."
"And in your view, has Trump done anything wrong in either the classified documents case or his attempts to overturn the 2020 election?" Acosta asked.
Burchett said he wasn't a lawyer but that all of what was revealed is "circumstantial evidence."
"It's clearly politically motivated, and it was proven, and now we have informants coming forward telling us that these things that they accuse Trump of are things that the Biden family was obviously guilty of —" he rambled until Acosta cut him off, asking specifically about the claim of "circumstantial evidence" that Trump had documents.
"In the documents case, it isn't circumstantial evidence that he had the documents and he was asked to give the documents back, and he refused to do so," said Acosta.
"Oh, no, no, no," said Burchett. "I'm sorry. No. Yeah, you're correct there, Jim. I apologize."
"And he did try to overturn the election on Jan. 6," Acosta continued.
"And absolutely, yeah, and, you know, actually, I had discussions with leadership and others. I've called for a different scenario for those type of documents (sic)," said Burchett. "I don't think they should ever leave the hands of the bureaucrats. I think they've got to be assigned to somebody."
"Shouldn't he be punished for that?" Acosta asked. "He did bad things. Shouldn't he be punished like everybody else?"
Burchett said he doesn't have a problem saying Trump should be punished, "but at what level? Is he doing it to disseminate secret documents to our enemies, or what was the intent there? The intent was I'm not going turn them back. You should have been returned from the beginning."
For over a year, Trump was asked to return them, and refused. He then lied about where they were and what he had. His lawyers then lied about the documents. But Burchett said that classified documents, even the ones concerning nuclear weapons, weren't all that important.
"If he disseminated the information to some of our enemies, throw the book at him," said Burchett. "Put him in jail, cuff him and stuff him. But if he just kept them there at his place and we don't have any evidence that anybody else could do us harm saw them, the reality is, Jim, once those documents are printed, and they're out there, it's not very long — I've been in the SCIF, and I've walked out and heard your colleagues from CNN within 15 minutes talking about what was secret and what was discussed because I watched it, and I see that."
Thus far, despite Burchett's claims, Americans don't know what documents Trump had, what they said, and the seriousness of them.
See the back and forth in the video below or at the link here:
Acosta hammers Republican for downplaying Trump's document scandalwww.youtube.com
