Attorney General Merrick Garland made a "strategic mistake" when he had the FBI raid former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, as classified documents discovered in now-President Joe Biden's home and private office show, former DNI John Ratcliffe tells Newsmax.
Appearing Monday on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," Ratcliffe, Trump's director of national intelligence, said much of the focus has been on the legal implications of the documents found in Biden's possession after he had left the office of vice president in 2016.
But, he added, Garland "made a real mess" of the whole situation when he engaged in an "unprecedented raid" of a former president.
Garland used a statute that was never intended to be applied to former presidents, Ratcliffe said.
"And I think it was intended to lead to an unprecedented prosecution — before it hit a speed bump by the name of Joe Biden," he continued.
Biden's own classified document problem was immediately pounced on by his critics who demanded Biden get the same treatment as Trump when his house underwent a daylong raid.
His defenders, along with mainstream media, said the cases were different because Biden voluntarily turned over his documents when his lawyers found them, and there were far fewer of them. Both examples were the opposite of how Trump treated his situation.
But as more and more documents were found in more and more locations, Biden has begun losing the sympathy of much of the mainstream media except for those that lean farthest left.
Ratcliffe told Van Susteren that "this whole issue of classified documents with respect to both presidents" is not the real issue.
The most significant issue, he said, is the content of the documents.
In Biden's case, "the influence-peddling allegations are very real, he said, noting that many of the documents relate to Ukraine and China, where both he and family members have business ties.
"All of that is very real," Ratcliffe said. "There is a national security concern, and that's really where the focus should be."
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