Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank suggested on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should be treated just like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in 2016, adding that he should be the subject of "lock him up chants."
Millbank described part of the 2016 election cycle but put it in the context of Trump potentially running in 2024. "Eleven days before the election, the FBI director, in another breach of protocol, should send a public letter to Congress announcing that he has reopened the investigation into Trump because of new, ‘pertinent’ information," he wrote.
He said that two days prior to the 2024 election, the FBI director should announce that the new information amounted to nothing. "But by then it is too late: The news of the reopened probe will dominate coverage in the closing days of the campaign, and, analyses will show, cause Trump to lose an election he otherwise would have won," Milbank said.
"Fair is fair," he continued. "MAGA Republicans should be careful what they wish for as they respond to every development in Trump’s legal saga with fits of whataboutism."
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"If they really want Trump to be treated the way Clinton was in 2016, they’ll also have to arrange for him to be the subject of ‘lock him up’ chants at Democratic rallies and for the Democratic nominee’s advisers and prominent backers to assert that Trump should be ‘executed,’ ‘shot’ and hanged," Milbank continued, alluding to Clinton in 2016.
He argued that Trump's situation was more serious than Clinton's. "The Clinton ‘standard’ wasn’t ever any guarantee not to prosecute her," he wrote, noting what former FBI director James Comey said in July 2016.
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"All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice," Comey said at the time.
He said that he didn't see those things in the investigation into Clinton.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board argued on Tuesday that the FBI and the Department of Justice must apply the same standard to Trump that they applied to Clinton.
"For better or worse Mr. Comey and the Obama Justice Department had set the Clinton Standard for treating a prominent politician who mishandles classified documents," they wrote.
