Even Republican Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) had to concede that Donald Trump should have turned all documents over to the National Archives.
Video:
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Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you’re still not — you’re not answering the question. You were critical of Senator Clinton who actually turned over what she had, turned over all her devices. What we have here is a situation where the president did not turn over these documents.
Can you say whether that was right — or right or wrong? Do you believe it was right for the president to take those documents to Mar-a-Lago?
BLUNT: He should have turned the documents over and apparently had turned a number of documents over, George. What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election, suddenly, we’re talking about this rather than the economy or inflation or even the student loan program you and I were going to talk about today?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it went on because the president didn’t turn over the documents, correct? He was asked several times. He didn’t turn them over. He was subpoenaed, he didn’t respond to the subpoena.
BLUNT: You know, these documents apparently — good thing they’re going to have a special master look at these documents to sort through the documents that the president had every right to have and the documents that he hadn’t yet turned over.
I understand he turned over a lot of documents. He should have turned over all of them. I imagine he knows that very well now as well.
Blunt tried to raise questions about the timing of the search, which would not have been an issue if Trump would have turned over the documents when they were first requested shortly after he left office.
Sen. Blunt even tried the old Susan Collins trick of claiming that Trump has learned his lesson, but the inescapable fact is that Donald Trump should have turned over the classified materials.
Roy Blunt was the only Trump-supporting Republican in Congress to appear on the broadcast network Sunday news shows, and even he could not defend the theft of the documents.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association