McCarthy dodges Trump indictment questions by pointing finger at Biden

Mr McCarthy has repeatedly offered support for Mr Trump in recent months

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy avoided answering questions about the additional charges filed in the superseding indictment against former President Donald Trump and instead redirected the conversation to President Joe Biden.

“What concerns me is you have a sitting president that has a situation like this, but even worse, that had documents, but nothing’s happened,” Mr McCarthy told a CNN reporter.

He continued, turning to President Biden’s time in Congress: “The president, when he was a senator, he took a document. How many years is that and there’s been no prosecution?”

The House speaker was referring to the Biden classified documents, some of which were dated to the president’s time in the Senate, Mr Biden’s lawyer said in January.

According to CNN, the California Republican added, “This is why everybody sits back and says, ‘What are these two, two tiers of justice right?’ And then you look, anything when it comes to the Biden Inc. family, they get a whole different treatment.”

Unlike Mr Trump, whose “refusal to return” his trove of classified documents, according to the federal indictment against him, the White House said Mr Biden was “cooperating fully” with the National Archives in January in handing over the documents he had possessed.

The reporter pointed out the difference between the obstruction charges and the allegations of mishandling documents, yet Mr McCarthy retorted, “It’s not two different issues. How has one kept being indicted and another not?”

Mr McCarthy has supported the former president as speaker throughout Mr Trump’s legal woes. Last month, he expressed support for the suggestion that the former president’s two impeachments be erased. He said, “Just as I thought before — that you should expunge it, because it never should have gone through.”

The House speaker has also signaled that he was open to backing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in order to press Mr Biden for information about his and his son’s financial dealings.