The Difference Between the Trump, Biden, Hillary, and Bill Clinton Cases Explained
No, it's not "selective prosecution."
To everyone who believes that the Trump indictment is "selective prosecution," I want to explain something.
The argument Republicans are making is that Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden were not prosecuted for their actions, but Trump has been prosecuted for his.
Trump's Case:
Trump is accused of taking top-secret documents, US Nuclear Documents, extremely sensitive military documents, defense documents, and more from the White House without notifying anyone. He took these documents to an unsecured location after he left office. He was subpoenaed for these documents by the US government but did not turn them over after receiving a court order to do so. His attorneys lied to the courts, saying they had searched and found no more. Meanwhile, he is accused of having an aide move the documents to a storage room after receiving the subpoena and then not allowing the FBI to search boxes in that storage room when they came to gather the documents he was subpoenaed for. He also apparently shared these documents with others who didn't have clearances while admitting that they were still classified. The indictment outlines that the government believes they have clear evidence of these actions.
Hillary's Case:
Hillary Clinton used a private email server without approval to conduct work as U.S. Secretary of State. This likely violated the Freedom of Information Act and national security legislation. However, many other individuals in office have done the same thing. For example, Ivanka Trump used a private email server to conduct official US business, and Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to privately conduct US business without allowing the rest of the government to gain access to what he was discussing. Nikki Haley sent multiple classified emails over unclassified systems. All of these actions would likely violate the same Freedom of Information Act law. None of them were prosecuted, but there is no evidence that any of them ignored a subpoena or took part in a cover-up. A third party did delete some of Hillary's emails a year after she had requested. She had requested the deletion well prior to the subpoena, and there is no evidence that she had any contact with that third party after the subpoena. Under an immunity deal, that third party said that Hillary did not know or ask them to delete the emails after the subpoena was issued. Whether or not that is true is up to us to have opinions on, but there was no evidence for the government to prove a crime.
Joe Biden's Case:
Joe Biden discovered documents in his home and office. He notified the FBI about the documents and freely allowed them to search wherever they wanted for more documents. There is no evidence that the public has seen that shows intent. Intent is a requirement to show that someone violated the Espionage Act. Biden would have had to knowingly keep documents from the government that he knew he was not allowed to have in order to violate the act. If there is/was evidence of this, then he could and should be charged with a crime when he leaves office. A special counsel is still investigating it.
Bill Clinton's Case:
Bill Clinton kept voice recordings between himself and a historian in his sock drawer. Upon leaving the White House, he took the tapes with him, claiming they were "personal records" rather than "Presidential Records." NARA and the government agreed that they were classified as "personal records" and never attempted to claim them. Judicial Watch tried to obtain them but could not because they were not "Presidential Records." There was absolutely no crime there, and no potential crime there. This doesn't mean that if these recordings had top-secret information on them, the government couldn't ask for them back.