Joe Biden’s gift to Donald Trump will not help him regain influence

The discovery of secret documents in President Joe Biden’s former office at the Washington think tank where he worked between 2017 and mid-2019 is a “political gift” to Donald Trump, experts say news weekbut that won’t necessarily help the former president regain influence within the Republican Party.

On Tuesday, the White House confirmed a CBS report that the Justice Department is reviewing an unidentified number of classified documents that Biden’s attorneys found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2.

The case has outraged Trump, who asked the FBI to search Biden’s home, as his Mar-a-Lago residence had done last August. Several conservative pundits and MAGA House Republicans joined in condemning the former president’s case, claiming that authorities would not pursue Biden the way Trump did.

“There is no doubt that MAGA Republicans will argue that Trump has a double standard in handling classified documents,” said Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science at University College London’s School of Public Policy.

Although there are some parallels between the two cases, “it would be a mistake to assume that both are the case [Trump and Biden] equally guilty,” Gift said. “Nonetheless, Trump will use these new revelations to muddy the waters, and it’s entirely possible he can do so successfully. It gives Trump more ammunition to claim he is the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.”

Biden’s case is likely to put pressure on the Justice Department, Gift believes, saying that “this will undoubtedly increase pressure on him not to press charges against Trump lest he be accused of selective prosecution.”

William Howell, a professor in the Department of Political Science and College at the University of Chicago, believes the discovery of classified documents in Biden’s former office was “absolutely a political gift” to Trump, especially at such a turbulent time within the Republican group.

“Biden is his most likely competitor in a race in 2024 (should Trump secure the Republican nomination),” Howell said. “But mostly it has to do with the recent scandal with Trump, the discovery of these mines of classified information in Mar-a-Lago,” he added.

“It shifts the whole conversation away from Trump following the rules and regulations around classified information and working with the national archives and instead treating one of his unfairly as a former president.”

But despite this “political gift” being presented to Trump, which will likely help him investigate him, Howell believes the case will not help the former president regain influence within the GOP.

“Will this redeem his standing in the Republican Party? I suspect not, at least not directly,” Howell said.

During the tumultuous election for Speaker of the 118th Congress, which Kevin McCarthy won on the 15th ballot, Trump called on House Republicans to rally around the California representative, but was openly challenged by some of his staunchest supporters, including Lauren Boebert Matt Gaetz.

The November midterm elections were also a disappointing time for the former president, with many of the candidates he supported losing to their Democratic rivals.

“The main reason Trump’s standing in the party has declined is that his own popularity and support – and support for the people he supported during the midterm election – has declined, it’s not because of the arguments he’s proposing “Howell said.

“It’s about the political influence he wields. And to the extent that the broader public is fed up with Trump and fed up with the lies about the 2020 election, and they think it’s time to move on – and are therefore less likely to stand beside him and follow his direction – then Trump will exert less influence .

“And that’s understandable, apart from the merits of the long argument he’s been making for years, which is that he was mistreated.”

news week has reached out to Trump’s team for comment.