CNN’s Pamela Brown called on House Republican Mike Turner to be “intellectually honest” about the major differences between President Joe Biden’s cooperation with classified documents found at his home and former President Donald Trump’s obstruction of justice — which sparked the raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“If you’re being intellectually honest with yourself, the key difference here [is] that Trump and his team defied a subpoena,” Brown told the House Intelligence Committee Chairman on CNN Saturday, pointing to Trump’s lack of compliance with the investigation after Turner insisted the raid was an “abuse of power.”
“They said they had turned over everything,” the CNN anchor continued. “Yet, evidence developed through the course of the investigation that classified documents were being moved, which started this obstruction of justice investigation, so that is a key difference here of why the FBI searched that residence.”
“It wasn’t an obstruction of justice investigation,” Turner interjected before Brown shot back by saying, “Absolutely, that was part of it; absolutely it was.”
Though Turner argued that “the attorney general had several steps he could go through before he’s playing around in Melania’s closet,” Turner shut down his claims by pointing out how the back-and-forth went on for “months and months and months” and that there was “tremendous deference given” before the DOJ executed their search.
“To go to the level of raiding the former president’s home — the political rival of President Biden — that is such a high level of scrutiny,” Turner said. “As you know, they can’t claim that it was because the national security was at risk ’cause they didn’t even ask anybody who’s in national security.”
“Would you have that same reaction if the same circumstances were applied to Biden — you would say the exact same thing: ‘Oh, they shouldn’t have done it?’” Brown pressed him once more, before Turner responded, “I would have the exact same reaction.”
The clash comes hours after the news that Justice Department investigators seized several additional classified documents at Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware.
Earlier this month, CNN announced Brown’s new role as Chief Investigative Correspondent and Anchor, where she will join the investigative team and fill in as an anchor on the weekdays.
“It has been a great 2 years having my show on the weekends, but I’m excited to take on this new role as CNN’s Chief Investigative Correspondent & Anchor,” Brown wrote on Twitter.
