In the wake of Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment, congressional Republicans have had plenty to say. They’ve condemned the charges. And federal law enforcement. And the White House. And the judicial system. And those who’ve dared to suggest the former president should be held accountable for his alleged crimes.
What they haven’t done is say that Trump did something wrong. That changed on Sunday, when Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and made a point his colleagues have gone out of their way to avoid. From the network transcript:
“We don’t have a right to take top secret information to our home. I’ve dealt with top secrets since I was 22 years old, in the military for 30 years, and now in Congress. You don’t show our attack plans on Iran to people who are not cleared or pick documents that talk about our nuclear technology or where our intelligence resources are located throughout the world. And that’s what happened there. And when the government asks for them back, you give them back. And if you deny having them, but then you have them, those are crimes.”
In the same interview, Bacon added, “You can’t have hundreds of top secret information and be showing our attack plans on Iran to non-cleared people. I think, again, our party does best when we stand on the rule of law, the truth, the principles that made our party strong. And if we walk away from that, we’ll be weakened in the short run, for sure.”
The Nebraskan, as best as I can tell, is the first House Republican to publicly acknowledge the fairly obvious fact that the former president did something he was not supposed to do.
I can appreciate why this clears a very low bar — Bacon simply recognized reality during a nationally televised interview — but given the state of the discourse in GOP circles, this was a breath of fresh air.
Chuck Todd asked the congressman the right follow-up question: “Why do you think the party rallies around [Trump] when these things happen, rather than looks at the facts like you do and say, ‘You’re not supposed to do this, sir?’” Bacon responded that some Republicans see parallels between Trump’s case and investigations into President Joe Biden’s and former Vice President Mike Pence’s documents, but, the Nebraskan added, “the situations are different.”
That was true, too.
It was all going well, right up until Bacon added that he “personally thought Hillary Clinton was wrong,” adding, “I thought she should have been held more accountable. But I think a lot of our voters see, or perceive, these inconsistencies. But two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Sigh. Look, I realize Republican attitudes related to Clinton occasionally veer into irrationality, but her email protocols were the subject of a lengthy criminal probe. The FBI, following an exhaustive investigation, couldn’t indict her because federal law enforcement couldn’t find evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Trump’s State Department similarly conceded — late on a Friday afternoon — that there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information from Clinton. The inspector general’s office in Trump’s Justice Department also concluded that the FBI had no reason to charge Clinton. The “inconsistencies” Bacon referred to don’t exist. Trump’s alleged crimes in the classified documents scandal bear no resemblance to Clinton’s email controversy. Not even a little. No resemblance at all. Taking stock, the good news is, the House Republican took a principled and accurate stance on Trump’s indictment, breaking new partisan ground. The bad news is, Bacon couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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