Better in their words…

JULIE KELLY. MAR 11, 2026

Just returning the favor, Joe!

It bears repeating—over and over and over—that the events of January 6, 2021 were intended not only to result in the imprisonment of Donald Trump but also to deliver a fatal blow to the entire MAGA movement. No other day in American history, not even 9/11, has produced more media coverage, more investigations, more arrests (that is certain), more indictments, and more political grist for anti-Trump forces than the mostly nonviolent four-hour protest on a Wednesday afternoon more than five years ago.

Democrats, as such, acted with impunity, emboldened by a collective belief that Donald Trump never would return to the White House. Any abuse of power, any outlier court ruling, any audacious tactic by Congress, any extreme represented an historical one-off with no opportunity for Republicans, let alone Donald Trump, to flip the script in the future.

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And no one tempted that fate more than Joe Biden. Working his revenge tour through cutouts in his Department of Justice, Democrats and NeverTrumpers in Congress, and various federal agencies to try and put President Trump behind bars, Biden personally aided the process by becoming the first president in history to deny his predecessor’s executive privilege claims.

The treachery started in October 2021 when Trump asserted executive privilege to prevent the January 6 Select Committee from obtaining thousands of presidential records; Chairman Bennie Thompson had sent the National Archives a 16-page letter to demand the production of a massive trove of documents—consisting largely of the president’s communications with dozens of White House officials, personal attorneys, family members including his wife and children, campaign advisors, and conservative influencers—dating back to April 2020.

Dana Remus, Biden’s White House counsel, immediately notified the National Archives that Biden had “determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States.” Remus continued to explain Biden’s thinking in the matter. “[The] insurrection that took place on January 6, and the extraordinary events surrounding it, must be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.” (Biden twice more denied Trump’s privilege claims related to the committee’s investigation.)

Who is the King Now?

Trump immediately filed a lawsuit; he called the J6 committee’s request “a vexatious, illegal fishing expedition openly endorsed by Biden” and accused Biden of participating in “a political ploy to accommodate his partisan allies.” The lawsuit landed on the desk of Tanya Chutkan, the Obama appointee who later presided over Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal J6 indictment against Trump.

Chutkan hastily denied Trump’s request. “[Presidents] are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan, per her usual habit of flouting her contempt for Trump whenever possible, wrote in November 2021. Chutkan repeatedly argued that the incumbent president retained sole authority in determining the right of executive privilege and criticized Trump for not “[acknowledging] the deference owed to the incumbent President’s judgment.”

A D.C. appellate court panel, which included future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, upheld Chutkan’s decision less than a month later; soon thereafter, the Supreme Court declined to take up the issue. Thousands of presidential records landed in the dirty hands of Trump’s most vicious foes in Congress including Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff.

And rest was history. Or so everyone thought.

History is indeed repeating itself—just not the way Joe Biden, the D.C. courts, and the January 6 committee ever envisioned.

Eating Their Own Words

In a full circle moment that truly defies imagination, Biden sent letters to the Archives last year asserting executive privilege related to several Senate investigations into his administration and his family. The letters, according to Fox News, were sent in October and December. 

White House counsel David Warrington quickly informed the Archives that “President Trump has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States,”—the exact same words Remus had used in 2021.

But Warrington wasn’t done making Biden eat his own words while at the same time mocking Biden’s disparate “signatures” now under investigation.

Remus letter followed by Warrington’s December 2025 letter:

This week, according to Fox News, the president again rejected Biden’s executive privilege claims. In doing so, Warrington again cribbed part of Remus’ 2021 letter: “[The] abuse of the autopen that took place during the Biden Presidency, and the extraordinary efforts to shield President Biden’s diminished faculties from the public, must be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again.” 

And one more jab: “President Trump instructs you to provide to these congressional committees the pages identified as privileged by the former President.”

Biden’s team did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

What could they have said in response? “You reap what you sow?”

“What goes around comes around?”

“Payback is a bitch?”

“Elections have consequences?”

“The hunter is now the hunted?”

Sorry, Joe—this time, the joke’s on you.

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