Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz was slammed online for praising former Vice President Mike Pence for cooperating with authorities after classified documents were found in his home one second, and then criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden for the same thing the next.
Classified documents were found at Pence's Indiana residence this week, prompting Pence's attorney to announce Pence "understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry."
Cruz praised Pence during an appearance on Fox News, the same network whose hosts had earlier openly worried the news would undercut their continued attacks against Biden for his own mishandling of classified documents.
You can hear what Cruz said in the video below.
Earlier this month, government documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.
Biden said he was "surprised" classified documents were found at the think tank, saying people know he "take[s] classified documents, classified information seriously" and his lawyers did the right thing when they "immediately called" the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and turned them over.
The scandal has only become more complicated by the discovery of more documents at Biden's private residences, drawing comparisons to the ongoing federal investigation into former Republican President Donald Trump, who denied he broke federal law regarding presidential documents he'd spirited away from the White House.
As far as Cruz was concerned, these developments warrant further investigation into not just Biden but his son Hunter, recirculating conspiracies about the younger Biden's alleged "business misdealings" that were the basis for a debunked New York Post report.
He said:
"Then this shifts from a political problem to a very serious problem of criminal liability and major crimes and so the FBI needs to search the University of Delaware archives, and they need to search Hunter Biden’s home and business address."
After Fox Business host Larry Kudlow asked Cruz to comment on the investigation into Pence and whether he sees any difference between Pence and Biden, Cruz flip flopped:
"Oh, look, the Mike Pence story. It's still early. Mike Pence, as you noted, is a good friend, he's a good man. He's explained where these came from."
"What his office has put out is that in packing up the vice presidential offices that there were a couple of papers that were classified that were inadvertently put with non-classified materials. That was a mistake but there's no reason to think it was anything but inadvertent."
"That is very different from what Joe Biden has done. Joe Biden has given zero explanation how these classified documents got there and in particular he has given no explanation into how he has documents from his time in the Senate."
Cruz's comments immediately prompted his critics to point out his hypocrisy.
Cruz's comments on the matter came as Fox News hosts openly complained Pence's misuse of classified documents now means "we have to be fair and balanced and show both sides."
The hosts of The Five, particularly Jesse Watters, said Pence had "ruined" the "great thing" that was Fox News' inflammatory coverage of the Biden administration and its subsequent high ratings.
The hosts were so perturbed by the news that Watters casually suggested Pence should have "destroyed" the documents rather than be implicated in an investigation that would require Fox News to pivot away from openly attacking Democrats.
