House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit at the White House in Washington, on May 22, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) slammed CNN on June 12 as he was being pressed about the indictment against former President Donald Trump over his handing of classified documents.
“The idea of equal justice is not playing out here,” McCarthy told a group of reporters at Capitol Hill, referring to how Trump and President Joe Biden were treated differently over their retention of government records.
“You’re with CNN, right?” McCarthy asked the reporter questioning him.
When the reporter confirmed that she was, McCarthy questioned why the network had hired Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who was fired in March 2019 after a Justice Department internal review found that he had “made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor—including under oath—on multiple occasions.”
“This is a different set of circumstances,” the reporter interjected, and asked whether McCarthy was “prepared to defend” Trump in light of the charges against him, as well as what steps the House would take next.
“Are you prepared to defend your network, CNN?” McCarthy replied. “Even though your network can hire Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the FBI for leaking classified documents—did you remove him from your network?
“No, you continue to put him on to give judgment against President Trump. You also hire [James] Clapper.”
The CNN reporter again asked McCarthy what steps the House would take, such as defunding the FBI or the Justice Department.
McCarthy appeared to ignore the question, returning instead to CNN’s employment of Clapper, the former director of national intelligence who Republicans had previously accused of leaking information to media outlets and then lying about it to Congress.
Then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies during a hearing before the House Select Intelligence Committee on Nov. 17, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Clapper was among the 51 signatories of an open letter that dismissed the New York Post’s October 2020 report that exposed the explosive contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden.
The letter said that the “arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Subsequent reporting has confirmed that the laptop wasn’t part of a Russian disinformation campaign, but had been abandoned at a computer repair shop by its owner. Some of the contents found on the laptop included embarrassing photos of Hunter Biden, including one apparently showing him having passed out while smoking a crack pipe.
“So your network hires Clapper, who literally lied to the American public—one of 51 other individuals that had briefings, and used it politically, to tell the American public that a laptop was Russia collusion, even though it had all this information about the Biden administration,” the speaker said.
“Are you prepared to get rid of those people from your network? Because my concern as a policymaker is that when you weaponize government, and now you’re weaponizing [television] networks, that is wrong,” he continued.
“We will take all of our power to make sure that the legal system in America gets the blinders back on and people are treated fairly.
“I have a real problem that your network actually pays people who did classified information and then lied to the American public to try to influence a presidential election—and then you put them on your network to give an opinion about a president.”
CNN didn’t immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the stage after delivering remarks the North Carolina Republican Party’s annual state convention in Greensboro, N.C., on June 10, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump appeared in a Miami courtroom on Tuesday, and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Last week, the Department of Justice indicted Trump on dozens of charges related to allegations of his mishandling classified documents. Trump has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, and recently said he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
Shortly after Trump announced he had been indicted, McCarthy said, “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America.”
“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades,” McCarthy wrote on Twitter. “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”
Tom Ozimek and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
