As Trump complains, Biden sits down with Republican Special Counsel in voluntary interview

This is yet another extraordinary contrast between Biden and Trump, both of whom had been the subject of special counsels appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding classified documents. Legal experts commended Biden’s decision to be voluntarily interviewed by a Republican special prosecutor, distinguishing him from Trump, a notoriously unreliable witness who has only ever consented to be interviewed in writing.

Indicted since May, Trump is currently under prosecution by Jack Smith for the willful retention of classified documents and national defense information. In contrast, Hur’s investigation into the sitting President has been relatively lower profile and has not—as of now—resulted in prosecution.

Much of this owes to two facts: first, by all accounts, Biden and his staff have cooperated with the Justice Department, National Archives, and Special Counsel Hur since the discovery of the documents, in contrast to Trump’s lies and obstruction over a span of two years. Second, Biden enjoys protection from a longstanding Justice Department policy that a sitting President can’t be criminally prosecuted. (This protection is also what saved Trump from potential prosecution by Robert Mueller in 2019.)

A possible third fact is that whereas Trump committed prosecutable offenses, Biden did not. But as the investigation is ongoing, there’s no reason to speculate.

Trump recently took to Truth Social to petulantly complain about the situation: citing the Presidential Records Act, Trump claimed he “did absolutely nothing wrong” whereas Biden “did everything wrong.”

Even conservative legal experts agree that the Presidential Records Act does not empower a former President to take whatever documents they want and to lie to the relevant authorities which are the custodians of such documents.