GOP Inves­ti­ga­tors Say White House May Have Vio­lat­ed Law With White­wash Of Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Com­ment

Posted in Election 2024  •  Published by

House Repub­li­cans announced on Wednes­day an inves­ti­ga­tion into how the White House han­dled Pres­i­dent Joe Biden call­ing for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump‘s sup­port­ers “garbage” dur­ing remarks to a Lati­no vot­ing group in response to a comedian’s joke about Puer­to Rico being an “island of garbage” at Trump’s Madi­son Square Gar­den cam­paign ral­ly over the week­end.

In a let­ter to White House Coun­sel Edward Siskel, House GOP Con­fer­ence Chair­woman Elise Ste­fanik (R‑NY) and Over­sight Chair­man James Com­er (R‑KY) said the White House may have vio­lat­ed fed­er­al law by releas­ing a “false tran­script” of Biden’s remarks while seek­ing to boost the cam­paign of Trump’s 2024 rival in the White House race, Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris.

“Amer­i­cans were right­ful­ly insult­ed when Pres­i­dent Biden, seek­ing to boost Ms. Harris’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, referred to an enor­mous swath of the coun­try as ‘float­ing … garbage.’ Pres­i­dent Biden’s vin­dic­tive words were unsur­pris­ing, giv­en his pre­vi­ous state­ments regard­ing peo­ple who choose not to vote for his pre­ferred can­di­date. Unsur­pris­ing too were the White House’s actions after he said them. Instead of apol­o­giz­ing or clar­i­fy­ing Pres­i­dent Biden’s words, the White House instead sought to change them (despite them being record­ed on video) by releas­ing a false tran­script of his remarks. The move is not only craven, but it also appears to be in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law, includ­ing the Pres­i­den­tial Records Act of 1978,” they wrote.

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“White House staff can­not rewrite the words of the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States to be more polit­i­cal­ly on mes­sage,” Ste­fanik and Com­er added. “Though Pres­i­dent Biden’s rel­e­vance con­tin­ues to dimin­ish, his words con­tin­ue to mat­ter, even as they become increas­ing­ly divi­sive and errat­ic. We write to demand the White House retain and pre­serve all doc­u­ments and inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions regard­ing Pres­i­dent Biden’s state­ment and the release of the inac­cu­rate tran­script. We also demand that the White House issue a cor­rect­ed tran­script with the accu­rate words.”

As The Dai­ly Wire report­ed, Biden said on Tues­day: “The only garbage I see float­ing out there is his sup­port­ers. His demo­niza­tion of Lati­nos is uncon­scionable, and it’s un-Amer­i­can. It’s total­ly con­trary to every­thing we’ve done, every­thing we’ve been.” There is video footage of his remarks.

How­ev­er, the White House released a tran­script that con­tained a dif­fer­ent quote: “The only garbage I see float­ing out there is his supporter’s — his — his demo­niza­tion of Lati­nos is uncon­scionable, and it’s un-Amer­i­can. It’s total­ly con­trary to every­thing we’ve done, every­thing we’ve been.”

Jour­nal­ist Michael Shel­len­berg­er respond­ed to the White House tran­script, post­ing on X: “The Pres­i­den­tial Records Act pro­hibits alter­ing offi­cial tran­scripts, which is what the White House did. And the alter­ation makes no sense. The White House is now claim­ing Biden was refer­ring to the racism of Trump’s sup­port­ers, but the tran­script refers to ‘his supporter’s.’”

Biden claimed in a post to X: “Ear­li­er today I referred to the hate­ful rhetoric about Puer­to Rico spewed by Trump’s sup­port­er at his Madi­son Square Gar­den ral­ly as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demo­niza­tion of Lati­nos is uncon­scionable. That’s all I meant to say. The com­ments at that ral­ly don’t reflect who we are as a nation.” And Har­ris told reporters that she thought Biden “clar­i­fied his com­ments” and the VP said she “strong­ly” dis­agreed “with any crit­i­cism” of peo­ple based on their vote.

Trump respond­ed by jump­ing into a garbage truck in the bat­tle­ground state of Wis­con­sin and telling reporters that Biden’s com­ment was a “dis­grace.”