OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Whoopi Goldberg has had her fair share of controversies as a host of the ABC talk show “The View” but sometimes she says things that are true head scratchers.
This week the actress and comedian did her best to make excuses for President Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal that she never made for former President Donald Trump.
Of President Biden’s mishandled classified documents, that date back to his time as a senator, could have declassified those documents as vice president for former President Obama.
This is not an excuse she afforded to former President Trump, who could have declassified documents, nor has President Biden claimed to have declassified anything.
“Presidents and vice-presidents can declassify these,” but “not with their brains,” she said, a reference to former President Trump.
She did say she wanted the White House to specify what type of classified documents were discovered, which is a frustration many have had.
“I wish they would say all that while they’re explaining what’s going on, because if you say, you know, a ‘classified document,’ everybody goes, ‘Oh my God, How dare he keep that?’” the host said “And if these guys can declassify-presidents and vice presidents can declassify, are we chasing our tail with some of this?”
But co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked for former President Trump, said that both the former president and President Biden should be held to the same standard.
“So for President Biden to be able to declassify something, there has to be evidence he did, in fact, declassify it,” the host said. “Which is the thing Trump is trying to argue, ‘I declassified it,’ well there’s no evidence.”
“What I’m frustrated by is how brazen and dismissive President Biden has been of this, because he said, ‘anyone can be irresponsible, but I have no regrets and there’s no there there, but it was locked up next to my corvette.’ This as you said is a serious matter,” she said.
“One top secret document means a grave risk to national security. It’s a bad fact pattern for him,” she said. “I said that last week ‘I think we’re going to find more documents.’ At some point, I think he needs to say, ‘There may be more. I open up any residences I have been in, you know, to be searched, by cooperation doesn’t negate the fact he had these wrongly in the first place.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin was more concerned with how both situations make the government look to others.
“Why is it that the process is either not ironclad or they don’t know it, or they don’t understand it?” she said. “We’ve both worked for the government, I could never take something out of a grand jury’s secret area and take it home without either getting fired or getting someone killed.”
Goldberg said she wanted to wait for more information before she judged the situation.
“I’m going to say this again. I think that it really will depend on what’s in those boxes because if, in fact, presidents have the ability to declassify things, then, you know, Obama says, ‘yeah. We dealt with this. We declassified,’” the host said.
“The problem for me is I want to, like, wait and get all the information and know what we’re talking about,” she said.
And the classified documents scandal did not end with Biden.
After ‘The View” went off the air it was discovered that an attorney for former Vice President Mike Pence announced that he found classified documents at the Indiana home of the former vice president and has given them to the FBI.
CNN reported: “The FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division have launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in Pence’s house in Indiana. The classified documents were discovered at Pence’s new home in Carmel, Indiana, by a lawyer for Pence in the wake of the revelations about classified material discovered in President Joe Biden’s private office and residence, the sources said. The discovery comes after Pence has repeatedly said he did not have any classified documents in his possession.”
After the scandals involving classified documents with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump the former vice president instructed an attorney of his, who has had security clearances in the past, to conduct a search of his residence for classified documents.
“Pence asked his lawyer to conduct the search of his home out of an abundance of caution, and the attorney began going through four boxes stored at Pence’s house last week, finding a small number of documents with classified markings, the sources said,” CNN reported.
“Pence’s lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, the sources said. In turn, the Archives informed the Justice Department,” the report said.
“A lawyer for Pence told CNN that the FBI requested to pick up the documents with classified markings that evening, and Pence agreed. Agents from the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis picked up the documents from Pence’s home, the lawyer said,” it said.
The report said that it was a small number of documents that were found.
“Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,” his attorney Greg Jacob said. “Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”
