Democrat apparatchik and fake journalist Chuck Todd had a rather amazing interview with Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson on the seldom-watched “Meet the Press” on NBC. The subject was the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland (Special Counsel Appointed to Probe Joe Biden, White House Lied About Second Trove of Classified Documents) to investigate the discovery of secret documents strewn about Joe Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center (Penn Biden Center’s Friendliness With Communist China Leaves Unanswered Questions About Biden’s Storing Classified Documents There), his home (BREAKING: Second Location of Classified Documents Taken by Joe Biden Revealed, Scandal Deepens Considerably), and under empty Pennzoil cans in his garage (BREAKING: Second Location of Classified Documents Taken by Joe Biden Revealed, Scandal Deepens Considerably), and the potential actions by the Senate.

This is the whole interview. There is something eerily prophetic about a video named “Full Johnson.”

Todd starts out by questioning why Congress might want to do an oversight investigation about Biden and his various criminal acts.

So, I guess the problem that I feel like you run into with that decision is what you’re saying is if the Justice Department decides a crime wasn’t committed, they’re not going to prosecute a crime, it sounds like you still want the information out there because you want to politically damage the person that was investigated?

Really? Politically damage an opponent by holding public hearings into their conduct? Such a thing has never been done in Washington.

Then there is this classic.

Senator, senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name.

Making money off your last name is one thing if you are the untalented git of some Hollywood star. It is entirely different to fly to and from China on Air Force Two and return with a $1.5 billion business deal and a $500 million “loan” that doesn’t have to be paid back while kicking back 10 percent of the deal to the “big guy.” How about getting a no-show job on the board of directors of Ukraine’s national gas company at $83,000 a month and having your Dad fire the anti-corruption prosecutor?

This all violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. How about the rumors of porn involving what might be underage Chinese girls starring Hunter and the potential for leverage that would give the Chinese government over the actions of the Biden White House?

Along the way, Todd heaps ad hominems on Senator Johnson and his motives.

…Todd then tells Johnson to go back to on "your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want I understand it is part of your identity."…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 15, 2023

Turley recalled a time when Todd was perfectly willing to destroy a politician’s reputation because something “might” be amiss.

… For example, in 2018, Todd interviewed former House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff on Trump foreign deals and bank loans. Schiff declared without contradiction by Todd that “if Trump’s [business dealings] are a form of compromise, it needs to be exposed.”

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 9, 2023

Biden compromising the nation’s security might have been the political story of the week, but the political story of this weekend has been the Congressional and media reaction to the story.

Strangely, the reaction from Congress has been despair rather than the full-throated defense that I think most of us had expected (Dems Are Losing Their Minds Over Biden Response on Classified Documents). So it has been left to the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party to take up the defense (Acosta Gets Mocked Into Next Week Over His Effort to Shill for Biden on Classified Docs).

Rumors have abounded for months that Todd’s job was on the chopping block as he’s single-handedly overseen the devolution of one of the classic Sunday talk shows into nothing more than a recitation of Democrat talking points. Perhaps he thought trying to provoke a slap fight with Senator Johnson was just the thing to drive ratings.

I think it is something more. This bizarre and nearly childish interview by Todd hints something is perking behind the scenes. We don’t know the classification of the Biden documents yet. By this time, into the Trump document “scandal,” media leaks were claiming that they included nuclear launch codes (patently ridiculous to anyone but the profoundly imbecilic) and payroll documents for deep cover US assets in hostile countries (wtf?). The fact that no one has said, “hey, they were just routine documents that were over-classified,” means there was a serious breach of security. The actions by Congressional Democrats indicate they are not willing to go out on a limb defending Biden.

Full Transcript

CHUCK TODD:

–and lending your perspective to this. And joining me now is Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He’s the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations. Senator Johnson, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Well, Chuck, it’s been a while.

CHUCK TODD:

It has. Let me start with — do you approve of Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint a special counsel to look into the Joe Biden classified documents?

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Well, I guess because he assigned one to President Trump, it was pretty inevitable. I’m not a real fan of special counsels. I did join 32 of my colleagues in calling for one for Hunter Biden because we had a whistleblower that said that Attorney Weiss doesn’t have the resources to do the type of investigation required. So, but in general, I’m not a fan of special counsels. I think the way we handle these investigations of wrongdoing — I’ll call it that — in the political realm is we just do it completely backwards. I think Congress ought to be able to have access to all the information, do their oversight. You know, I never held public hearings. We just, you know, did our investigation and then issued a report. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, then we should refer that to the Justice Department. Then the investigation should take place. What happens nowadays is the investigation begins, Congress never gets access to the information, and as a result, the American public never understands the truth of these situations. And so, again, we just do these investigations in the political realm with wrongdoing completely backwards.

CHUCK TODD:

So, do you think though that — I mean, Congress has an oversight role. So shouldn’t Congress do their oversight role after an investigation is over? If doing it during the investigation, doesn’t that end up, either on purpose or inadvertently, interfere in the investigation?

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

The problem is is Congress never gets access to the information. And by the time we do get access to the information, if we do, it’s all old news and the political figures aren’t held accountable. And from my standpoint, you know, I’d much rather have political figures held accountable with the truth being exposed of what they did, what their wrongdoing, as opposed to the criminal penalties. Oftentimes it’s very difficult to get any kind of criminal charges or convictions, particularly if you’re a Democrat in Washington D.C. So, from my standpoint, the more important imperative here is for the public to understand exactly what is happening inside government, inside of the administration. And we never find that out. And so, that is part of the problem we have in terms of our politics today is the American public remains in the dark. Misinformation is spread on all sides. And certainly from a conservative viewpoint, one of our frustrations is the censorship, the suppression of information primarily is coming from the left against the conservative viewpoint.

CHUCK TODD:

So, I guess the problem that I feel like you run into with that decision is what you’re saying is if the Justice Department decides a crime wasn’t committed, they’re not going to prosecute a crime, it sounds like you still want the information out there because you want to politically damage the person that was investigated?

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

No, Chuck, because a lot of political wrongdoing does not necessarily result in a crime, but it’s still wrong and the public needs to understand exactly what happened. So, you know, take a look at the political wrongdoing on the part of the FBI. They went to Twitter and they were censoring information. Take a look at the 51 intelligence operatives that issued a letter saying that the Hunter Biden computer was — had all the earmarks of a Russian information operation. That letter was an information operation. What happened? The FBI had access to Hunter Biden’s computer in December 2019. Senator Grassley and I were conducting an investigation during Covid — not the easiest thing to do. We were smeared. There were false intelligence products leaked to the media. We got unsolicited briefings from the FBI designed to smear me because they leaked it later. The FBI spent almost nine months setting up the ability to sabotage the Hunter Biden computer, should it ever surface, which it did the day after. We were offered Hunter Biden’s computer the day after Chuck Grassley and I issued our report. But we did our due diligence. We went to the FBI. “What do you know about this?” They never came clean with us. Mr. Mac Isaac ended up getting frustrated and offered that to Rudy Giuliani’s computer,and then — or to his attorney, and then to the New York Post. But again, nine months of the FBI setting up the process of sabotaging Hunter Biden’s computer, which we now know is authentic. Our investigation was accurate, but we were smeared. All that information was censored and suppressed. And the FBI, in their actions, impacted the election to a far greater extent than anything that Russia or China ever could have hoped to have accomplished. These are facts, and that’s all I’m interested in, is I’m interested in the truth. And I think the American public deserves the truth. And again, these investigations, they cover up the truth.

CHUCK TODD:

Senator, senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

So, Chuck, you ought to read the Marco Polo report, where they detail all kinds of potential crimes. You know, Senator Grassley has certainly uncovered the —

CHUCK TODD:

Oh, hold on, let me stop you there. Potential. This is — senator, potential is innuendo.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

About, about, about, about, $30,000 —

CHUCK TODD:

This is why you do investigations.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

I mean, Chuck, is it a crime to be soliciting and purchasing prostitution in potentially European sex trafficking operations? Is that a crime? Because Chuck Grassley and I laid out about $30,000 paid by Hunter Biden to those types of individuals over December of 2018, 2019, about $30,000. That’s about the same time that President Biden offered to pay about $100,000 of Hunter Biden’s bills. I mean, again, that’s just some information. I don’t know exactly if it’s a crime.

CHUCK TODD:

Here’s what I don’t get. All right, Senator —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

It doesn’t really look — it sounds sleazy as you know what.

CHUCK TODD:

I’ll — I’ll take you, I’ll take you at your word that you’re ethically bothered by Hunter Biden. I’m curious, though, you seem to have a pattern —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Are you not? Are you not?

CHUCK TODD:

You seem to have a pattern. I’m a journalist. I have to deal in facts.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Are you not?

CHUCK TODD:

I deal in facts. Senator, my question to you is, I’m always worried, I have skepticism of both parties. I sit here with skepticism of a lot of people’s work —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

So do I.

CHUCK TODD:

— and I’m curious, are you, were you at all concerned? This — Senate Democrats want to investigate Jared Kushner’s loan from the Qatari government when he was working in the government negotiating many things in the Middle East. Are you not as concerned about — are you not concerned about that? And I say that because it seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

I’m, I’m concerned about getting the truth. I don’t target individuals, target individuals. I target the truth.

CHUCK TODD:

You don’t? You’re targeting Hunter Biden multiple times on this show, Senator.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

My concern — my — my —

CHUCK TODD:

You’re targeting an individual.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

Chuck, Chuck. My concern — you know, Chuck. You know, part of the problem, and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this, is you don’t invite me on to interview me, you invite me on to argue with me. You know, I’m just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and I uncovered. They were suppressed. They were censored. They interfered in the 2020 election. Conservatives understand that. Unfortunately, liberals in the media don’t. And that’s part of the things that — part of the reasons our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media. We don’t. It’s unfortunate. I’m all for free press.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, Senator —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

It needs to be more unbiased.

CHUCK TODD:

Senator, look, this is —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

There’s misinformation on both sides —

CHUCK TODD:

Look, go to partisan —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

— but the censorship and suppression —

CHUCK TODD:

Senator — Senator — look, we’re trying to do issues here and facts.

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

— primarily occurs on the left.

CHUCK TODD:

Partisan cable —

SEN. RON JOHNSON:

It’s frustrating.

CHUCK TODD:

Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity.