Six days before the midterm elections, the White House Report Attorneys for President Joe Biden discovered a “small number of classified-marked documents” in an office of a Washington think tank on Monday dating back to his 2020 campaign as vice president. oops.
Unsurprisingly, former President Donald Trump seized on the revelation as evidence for the FBI investigation Many of the government records he keeps when he leaves the White House in January 2021 are much ado about nothing. “When will the FBI raid many of Biden’s houses, even the White House?” Trump ask About the Truth Society. “There is absolutely no declassification of these documents.”
Of course, Trump was referring to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search His residence at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach resort, uncovered thousands of government documents, 103 of which were marked as classified. That’s in addition to the 184 classified documents found in 15 boxes that Trump turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in January 2022, and the 38 documents his lawyers discovered. secret document. produced In response to a federal subpoena last June. Trump also hinted at his claim that none of the documents were classified, thanks to “standing order“It is said that he issued as president, his decision bring his record, or maybe transformation He achieved spiritually “by thinking”.
Biden’s retention of classified material is significant, and the timing of the Justice Department’s acknowledgment that it is investigating the incident is suspicious. “The White House statement said it was ‘cooperating’ with the department,” New York Times notes“but did not explain why Mr. Biden’s team waited more than two months to announce the discovery of the documents, which were released a week before the congressional midterm elections, when the news would have been a last-minute explosion.” But with Contrary to what Trump suggested, what he did appears to be substantially different from what Biden did, although proving that both constituted a crime would be a tall order.
according to a statement By the President’s Special Counsel Richard Sauber, Biden’s attorneys discovered the classified records “in a locked closet” on Nov. 2 while he was at the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Pennsylvania Organize files in unused offices. That same day, they notified NARA, who retrieved the records the next morning. Sauber did not specify how many classified documents Biden had in office. According to an anonymous source, there are “about 10” quote go through Washington postNor did Sauber specify the level of classification that would apply to the records.
The documents “had not been the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives,” Sauber said. “Since this discovery, the President’s personal counsel has worked with the Archives and the Department of Justice to ensure that the Archives securely preserves any records of the Obama-Biden Administration.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has charged John R. Lausch Jr., Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to investigate the matter. If Lausch determines that a full investigation is warranted, Garland will likely appoint a special prosecutor, as he did in the Trump case.
Contrary to Sauber’s description of what happened to the classified records of Biden’s office, when NARA realized in 2021 that specific items were missing from the materials it received from him, the controversy over the documents Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago came to the fore. it has started. Months of wrangling with Trump’s representatives ensued, culminating in him handing over 15 chests of treasure a year after stepping down. The discovery of classified documents in those boxes, combined with evidence that more documents were left at Mar-a-Lago, led to the subpoena.
trump’s lawyer Say A “serious search” of records marked as classified turned up dozens more. But nothing more, they assured the Justice Department. Mar-a-Lago’s search, based in part on reports from one or more informants who claimed to be untrue, also found more than 100 documents marked from “Confidential” to “Top Secret,” including ” Sensitive Delimited Information” “
Even without considering the thousands of unclassified government documents Trump has stored at Mar-a-Lago, 325 classified records is about 30 times more than “about 10.” Trump’s collection may also include more sensitive material than Biden’s, though we don’t know for sure. If Biden’s lawyers did voluntarily file the records in a timely manner, this stands in stark contrast to Trump’s resistance, delays and equivocations, including false assurances from his lawyers that they had fully complied with the subpoena.
Biden would presumably claim he inadvertently kept 10 or so classified documents. If so, he would not be guilty of “willfully unlawful”. remove or hide Government records or “intentional” reserve ‘National Defense Information,’ FBI mentions two potential charges in its Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. It doesn’t look like Biden will make mistakes on purpose either get in the way The federal investigation, another possible crime the FBI cited in relation to the Mar-a-Lago raid, did not appear to have taken place until after Biden’s lawyers reported their findings.
Trump’s defense is more complicated.even if we accept his dubious statement The 325 documents marked as classified no longer have that status, which is irrelevant under the statute cited by the FBI. Trump’s intransigence, combined with the sheer volume of material, lead to the belief that he deliberately withheld documents he knew he had no right to keep.
Still, it seems reasonable for Trump to keep the records because he mistakenly believed they were his Private property And refused to return for the same reason. It also makes sense, especially given the haphazard way the documents were packaged and stored, Trump didn’t know exactly what was in the box. In other words, his actions could be explained by a combination of ignorance, arrogance, stubbornness, laziness, and carelessness, not criminal intent.
In addition to questions of intent, both cases raise questions about how sensitive the documents actually are. “In both cases,” a “person familiar with the Biden investigation” told postal“Classified national security information goes where it’s not supposed to go, so it raises a bigger question about how it’s handled.” [material], both in the White House and in transition. “
As far as Trump is concerned, we only have vague thoughts The topics covered by classified records, not to mention the information they contain. As far as Biden is concerned, we know even less. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the seriousness of the national security threat that storing them in an unapproved location could pose. The FBI apparently deemed the threats in Trump’s case serious enough to justify an unprecedented search of the former president’s residence. But the stronger the basis for that judgment, the less we are allowed to know.