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Comment by skellington | Hacker News Reader

Yeah but they weren't being persecuted for obviously political reasons. Usually the ruling class avoids eating their own because they know then that the guillotine can come for them. But in this case, Trump is too much of a danger to the war-machine establishment.

Hillary paid for the Steele Dossier and improperly reported it and was fined for it. They didn't try to press criminal charges against her for that or for mishandling classified emails (also a crime technically).

Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?

It's all theater.

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> Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?

Well, it could also be because Biden's discovery (a) was smaller and self-reported, (b) his legal team helped in resolving the situation, AND (c) the documents have been recovered in both cases and the ball is now in competent authority's court.

It's like this - say you and I both run over someone. I hide the evidence and try my best to prevent my guilt from surfacing. You, on the other hand, co-operate with the authorities and accept your blame. Which story is more likely to linger longer in the papers? I'd say mine simply because I'm being obstinate and refusing to do the right thing as expected by the law and by common decency.

I'd say that's why Biden's story died because of this.

Analogies are imperfect, but I think a little more detail would make it the analogy fair.

Let me restate your example of running over someone:

Let's say you and I both run over someone. I did it last year, and you did it 6 years ago. You say nothing for 6 years, I say nothing for 1 year. I get caught, and provide no cooperation whatsoever. You watch me get caught and excoriated in the press and decide you need to fess up and cooperate. 6 years after the fact.

Minor correction requested - "I ran over someone six years ago NOT knowing I had run over someone. Then I saw you getting beat up by the law so I checked my dash cam footage and realized that, oh sh!t, that lawman could come for me next so I turned myself in."

That's a truer representation of what actually happened.

Trump actively engaged in attempts to deceive authorities and the courts with regards to very current and highly secret documents.

The Biden team discovered some very old files nobody ever knew were missing and turned them over immediately.

Another point: The reality is that what Biden did, find some old documents and give them back, happens all the time and we need to build better systems to prevent that from happening. In the relevant law, intent is important and Biden apparently convinced the relevant people that he did not intend to keep these documents.

Trump meanwhile, clearly intended to take these documents, clearly lied to the feds about having these documents, gave some of them back when the feds said they knew he had them, lied about having more, and other stonewalling tactics. The feds TRIED to keep this hush hush for like a full year. If Trump would have given everything back at the first question, we might never have even heard of it.

> self-reported

IIRC the first instance wasn't, it was the second and third that were afterwards.

Also the FBI knew about and helped secure the documents Trump had before they were "discovered".

The parent poster was claiming that the story around Trump has died, seemingly suggesting that high profile figures on the Democrat side have realised it doesn't pay to keep pushing a story that now makes their own guy look bad. Personally I'm not convinced, most stories tend to fall out of the spotlight sooner or later unless new discoveries are made that can keep them interesting. Plus it's premature to suggest we've heard the end of that story anyway.

I think it’s because of (c) I.e., everything worth reporting has been reported, the ball is in the justice department’s court to decide what to do about both Biden and Trump. Merrick Garland is a methodical guy so it’s wait-n-watch wrt to the classified docs story.

Don’t think it’s malicious.

I find all these "look at me I'm very clever and I know what's really going on here" takes very tiresome.

Trump is too much of a danger to the war-machine establishment.

Trump is the war-machine establishment, bro. Recall he wanted (and according to some stories yesterday, still wants) to invade Mexico.

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