Shortly before Attorney General William Barr held a press conference to introduce the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, left-wing media pundits and politicians decried the conference happening before the report was released.
In her rush to capitalize on the moment, 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Barr was acting as if he were President Donald Trump’s “personal attorney.”
“It’s a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States,” Warren tweeted.
Warren’s comment would carry more weight if she had also found it a “disgrace” that former Attorney General Eric Holder called himself then-President Barack Obama’s “wingman.”
“I’m still enjoying what I’m doing, there’s still work to be done. I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy. So, we’ll see,” Holder said on the Tom Joyner radio show in response to a question about him leaving the administration.
That interview took place in April 2013. Warren was elected in 2012 and assumed office in January 2013. A quick Twitter search finds no comment from Warren the day of or day after regarding the Politico article containing Holder’s comment.
In fact, a search of her Twitter account reveals she only tweeted twice about the former attorney general — both tweets contained praise.
Was Holder’s “wingman” statement not evidence of him “acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States,” as Warren said of Barr?
The difference, obviously, is the party of the president.
They hypocrisy was noticed by Twitter user “Craige Schmuckatelli,” who asked Warren to “supply a link to your criticism of Holder saying that he was Obama’s ‘wingman.’”
Warren isn’t the only Democrat (or politician of any party, to be fair) with this problem. Another recent example comes from Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who also on Thursday said he was “deeply troubled by reports that the [White House] is being briefed on the Mueller report AHEAD of its release.”
But in 1998, when Bill Clinton — a Democrat — was president, Nadler whined that the White House wasn’t given an investigatory report before it was released because it prevented his preferred commander-in-chief from creating a response.
“What is at issue here this morning is not his conduct but the fairness of the resolution before us, which is manifestly and grossly unfair,” Nadler said of Ken Starr’s report in 1998. “It is manifestly unfair because it denies the President the privilege we have given to every other person accused, as the gentleman from Michigan stated, the ability to see the accusation before it is released publicly so he can prepare a response.”
Thankfully we have the Internet, where no one’s hypocrisy can remain hidden. Politicians and pundits show who they really are in their responses to similar events under presidents from different parties. Obama telling then Russian President Dmitri Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate after the 2012 election received barely a whiff from the mainstream media. Had Trump said the same thing to current Russian President Vladimir Putin, it would be impeachable evidence of collusion.