One of Joe Biden’s strengths among Democrats is his eight-year stint as Barack Obama’s vice president. It was, the former veep often says proudly, the Obama-Biden administration.
Suddenly, Republicans are happy to agree as they probe the previous administration’s role in the false Russia-collusion charges and the phony Michael Flynn prosecution. Already, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley has included Biden in his version of the infamous question, asking: “What did Obama and Biden know and when did they know it?”
President Trump calls it “Obamagate.” Any day now, I expect to see that changed to “ObamaBidengate.”
The 2020 race doesn’t lack for the sharp contrasts that usually decide elections. Trump’s personality and policies are one set, his response to the pandemic and the economic fallout another.
But the world’s greatest counterpuncher won’t play defense only and the entry of the Russia-Flynn scandal into the mix gives the president a big new hammer. Count on him to use it.
Biden got his first taste of the potential problems in an ABC interview Tuesday. Let’s just say his answer needs work. Lots of work.
George Stephanopoulos, who generally gives Dems the kid-glove treatment, cited Grassley’s question and asked Biden what he knew about the Flynn probe.
“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden quickly answered before saying the issue was a Trump diversion from the pandemic.
Uncharacteristically, Stephanopoulos pressed him, noting that Biden attended the Oval Office meeting on Jan. 5, 2017, where the FBI’s plan to question Flynn was discussed.
Biden appeared confused, saying he thought the initial question was about Flynn’s prosecution, before giving a new, tangled answer. “I was aware that there was — that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it, and I don’t think anything else,” he said before again complaining it was all a diversion.
Hmmm. So he was at the meeting but doesn’t know anything about the shocking and most important thing discussed.
That’s not gonna fly.
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