Democrats worry that President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign could be hampered by the discovery of classified material at his Wilmington, Delaware, home and an office he had after serving as Vice President.
Although many believe he’ll recover from this week’s revelations about dozens of classified documents found in various locations, they’re stressing that the disclosures would complicate Biden’s campaign announcement.
None have voiced their misgivings publicly, but privately, they’re drawing comparisons between the discovery of Biden’s classified documents and Hillary Clinton’s email controversy that surfaced while she was the Democrats’ Presidential candidate in 2016.
At the time, Clinton’s greatest political rival — former President Donald Trump — used the revelation that the former secretary of State was using a personal email server for government business to handicap her.
Republicans will likely wish to do the same with Biden.
It also offers the GOP a lifeline as it complicates the Democrats’ most potent attack on Trump — that the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home to find a hoard of classified documents. They also would have used the fact that the Department of Justice is currently investigating Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
According to one Democratic strategist, the discovery would be a “big problem” for Biden, noting that Republicans are good at “drumming up scandal.”
The strategist added that although “the situation here with Biden is completely different” to what had occurred with Trump, Republicans would “act like this is a huge deal.”
Although privately Republicans have expressed worry privately and publicly, they are painstakingly pointing out how Trump’s and Biden’s cases are fundamentally different.
Rodell Mollineau, a veteran Democrat strategist, pointed out that “it’s apples and oranges” but warned that Democrats should prepare for Republicans turning “this into the biggest scandal since Watergate.”
