Recent News
US President Joe Biden delivers his remarks about preserving and protecting Democracy on November 2, 2022 in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s garage or “document gate” — his improper possession of classified documents — is causing drama as a current president and his predecessor are being examined by special officer. advice at the same time.
China observers believed that US “veto politics” is increasingly degenerating into “retaliation politics”, where collective attacks go beyond political opinions and become more personal. The latest round of witch hunts, which is dragging the US Department of Justice (DOJ) into the mud, adds directly to the mounting evidence that exposes the US’s dysfunctional political system.
farce
Garland appointed Robert Hur Thursday to investigate Biden, who admitted that a second set of classified government documents from the Obama administration, during which Biden served as vice president, was found in a garage storage space at Biden’s home. Delaware, CNBC reported on. Thursday.
The latest disclosure comes three days after Biden’s special counsel, Richard Sauber, confirmed media reports that the president’s attorneys received the first batch of classified documents from the Biden administration on November 2, 2022 in an office at a Washington think tank that used by Biden. as a private citizen, according to a CNBC report.
The documents reportedly include information relating to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Garland in November 2022 was appointed special counsel to oversee criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
CNN reported Thursday that the special counsel investigation into Biden, along with an aggressive new Republican-led House of Representatives, means the current president could be on the defensive for the next two years.
Republican Mike Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday to ask her to immediately review and assess the damage of the first batch of Biden documents, CNBC reported ..
On Thursday, Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was just elected House Speaker after an embarrassing 15-round vote not seen in a century, said, “I think Congress needs to investigate this.”
“What is the difference between what President Trump did and what we now know President Biden did?” asked James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee. “We want to know exactly what documents were taken by both President Trump and now President Biden and we want to know if they treated President Biden any differently than they treated President Trump ,” CBS reported.
In addition to mutual political attacks, analysts have noted a trend in which the US mainstream media tends to minimize the severity of the Biden case, in contrast to its treatment of the Trump case.
The Trump family’s real estate business was ordered Friday to pay a $1.6 million criminal penalty for his conviction on tax fraud and other charges. The verdict branded the company a traitor, exposed a culture that fostered illegality for years and gave Trump’s opponents political ammunition, the New York Times reported.
Diao Daming, an expert on US studies and an associate professor at China’s Renmin University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday that despite the enactment of the Presidential Records Act in 1978, Biden and Trump’s cases of classified documents are more than four decades later. exposed the loopholes in US law enforcement and oversight.
There are clearly problems with the institutional framework that the United States prides itself on, he said.
Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that there is a gap in the US legislation in terms of restricting the actions of a president and handling the misconduct of a president. “Even a criminal suspect can be a presidential candidate” and it is too difficult to impeach a president successfully, said the expert.
Trump’s case was clearer, as he faced criminal charges and left the presidency, while Biden’s case was a bit more complicated because he is the current president and the documents date back to his time as vice president. president
The DOJ has no right to question Biden, and it remains to be seen how the two “classified document” cases will progress, Lü said, predicting that the investigations “could end up anywhere.”
According to Diao, the Democrats and Republicans are likely to strike a dangerous balance in this round of witch hunting.
But if Republicans can dig deeper, they will not miss the opportunity to attack Biden and his administration, which will generate more uncertainty about power struggles in Washington and the 2024 presidential election, analysts said.
Republicans have previously laid out a wide range of investigative targets aimed at President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings.
Comer, in the 118th Congress, said his House Oversight Committee will assess the status of Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a President in danger or dominated by foreign dollars and influence, CNN reported.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (CL) arrives at New York Supreme Court for a Trump Organization sentencing hearing on January 13, 2023 in New York City. A jury last month found the Trump Organization guilty and convicted the organization on charges of conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and filing false tax returns in a scheme to defraud the state. Photo: AFP
Extra decadence
The White House has hit back at the accusations. “Instead of working with President Biden to address issues that matter to the American people, like lower costs, congressional Republicans’ top priority is to go after President Biden with political attack shocks filled with longstanding conspiracy theories.”
Without control of the Senate, Republicans have less ability to advance their own legislative agenda. Therefore, the GOP will act as a destroyer in the House, using its veto power to sabotage the agenda of Biden and the Democrats, Diao said.
Observers were of the opinion that the two-party system in the US is becoming more radical and damaging to the entire political system.
Diao noted that US politics in the future will not be just “veto politics,” but “retaliation politics,” which will focus on attacking each other’s sense of character and ethics.
It is not only about political dysfunction, but also a situation of complete hostility between people, said Diao.
Citing the recent impasse before McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House, Lü said that the fights between the two parties are not only protracted, but that the internal divisions within each party are growing wider and wider, contributing to the polarization and radicalization of the jointly political.
Going against the interest of the whole party, a minority of politicians prefer to maximize their own political power. This is a systemic problem at the heart of US democracy, Lü said.
This essential flaw is the result of fragmentation within the two parties and has challenged the sustainability of the US two-party system, the expert said.
In other words, it is clearer than ever that the US political system, which the country used to be proud of, is being weaponized and is eroding the integrity of the system itself, analysts said.