PINNED DOWN: CNN’s Jim Acosta just nailed Andrew Yang for defending Trump’s crime spree
CNN’s Jim Acosta hammered Andrew Yang in an interview on Sunday, refusing to let the former presidential candidate off the hook for questions about tweets he made criticizing last Monday’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
Before the warrant was unsealed by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the FBI and Department of Justice endured heavy criticism from Trump allies, who accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of acting out of political motivation.
Yang joined in the criticism in his Twitter posts.
It seems like this was authorized by a local judge and a particular FBI office without buy-in or notification of higher levels of government. But literally no one will believe that or make a distinction. It’s probably bureaucratic but it seems political.
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 9, 2022
Yang went further to insinuate that the 2024 election would be “handed” to Trump as a result.
“If they raided his home just to find classified documents he took from The White House,” one legal expert noted, “he will be re-elected president in 2024, hands down. It will prove to be the greatest law enforcement mistake in history.” https://t.co/xMznFPn0UG
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 9, 2022
During the interview, Acosta pulled up a graphic of another tweet where Yang suggests the raid would be “great” for Trump’s campaign.
It looks increasingly like the FBI raid was to find mishandled classified documents and not some other DOJ investigation which was my first thought. Mishandling documents doesn’t seem like raid material. It does however seem like excellent campaign material for Trump.
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 9, 2022
The unsealing of the search warrant revealed that the FBI was investigating possible violations of the Espionage Act and that the documents Trump removed when he left the White House contained top secret and classified information vital to national security.
Acosta pressed Yang on his statements, “It sounds like you’re letting Trump off the hook here. Taking top secret documents to your mansion is ok with you? Are you giving Trump a pass?”
Yang’s response? To deflect and promote his newly formed third political party, simultaneously.
“Thanks Jim. It was a very disturbing report you just got from Donie O’Sullivan. The fact is extremism is on the rise throughout the country. It’s one reason why we think the Forward Party is so vital,” Yang self-servingly replied.
“Are you saying the attorney general had political motivations with this search at Mar-a-Lago?” Acosta countered.
“Oh, I trust that all of the DOJ employees, and particularly the FBI agents, are faithful public servants discharging their duty,” Yang said, still refusing to answer. “And it hurts us all that people are singling out individuals in the way Donie O’Sullivan’ described. It’s really awful.”
The CNN host continued to drill Yang, bringing up the shifting explanations coming from the former President’s camp, including accusations that the FBI planted the documents, saying they were declassified in advance, and asserting attorney-client privilege.
Acosta then asked directly, “Do you buy any of the explanations coming from Trump and his team?”
“I mean the hodgepodge of explanations,” answered Yang, “it tells you a lot because a lot of them are internally inconsistent. But the tough reality we’re in Jim, which you and I both know are now maybe 100 or 1000 different versions of reality that are being accepted by Americans of different ideological backgrounds.”
Finally, Acosta asked point blank, “Are you okay with Trump taking top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago? Let’s put it that way.” Yang, finally with a straight answer replies, “Of course not.”
Yang’s attempts to rehabilitate his image after his humiliating loss in the New York mayoral race have so far been unsuccessful, to say the least. If this interview with Jim Acosta is a sign of what’s to come from him and his new party – we’ll take a hard pass.
Watch the interview in the video clip below.
Original reporting by Sarah K. Burris at RawStory.
Follow Ty Ross on Twitter @cooltxchick
