Raskin warns Biden document discovery could become ‘political football’ 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Sunday warned against the discovery of two dozen classified documents at President Biden’s Delaware residence becoming “political football” between the parties after an FBI search found hundreds of classified documents last year at the Florida home of former President Trump.

“We don’t want to turn this into just a political football,” Raskin said on CNN’s “State of the Union” with anchor Jake Tapper.

A handful of documents were discovered late last year at Biden’s Wilmington home and a former Washington, D.C., office, drawing scrutiny from many on the right who said they believe the two presidents haven’t been treated the same for similar offenses.

Democrats are pushing back, highlighting the differences between the document discoveries — including that Biden’s team reportedly turned over the documents to the National Archives upon finding them, while authorities said Trump repeatedly resisted calls from the Archives to return the materials.

“It’s a bit disturbing to me. The people who are saying there was no problem with what Donald Trump did, which was to defiantly reject any cooperation and turning over hundreds of classified documents, are upset about President Biden’s voluntary and rapid turnover of a handful of documents that they found,” Raskin said.

Raskin said he was “delighted to learn” that Biden’s team turned the documents over immediately.

“That is a very different posture than what we saw with Donald Trump, where he was fighting for a period of more than eight months to not turn over hundreds of missing documents that the Archives was asking about. He defied a government subpoena, and they ended up having to go to court to get a court issued subpoena to go and search Mar-a-Lago. So that’s just a completely different posture,” Raskin said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed a special counsel to investigate the discovery of Biden’s classified documents dating back to his time as vice president. A special counsel has also been appointed in the Trump case.

Raskin said he thinks “it’s good” that the Biden matter has shifted to special counsel, a sentiment echoed Sunday by fellow Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).