Not only Trump: Biden caught in gross violation of the rules for the use of classified documents

Several secret documents from the time of President Joe Biden as vice president were discovered last fall in a private office, reports CNN.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked U.S. Attorney in Chicago to investigate the matter, a source familiar with the matter said, and Congressional Republicans are also paying attention.

Biden's lawyers say they discovered the government materials in November when they closed the office of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, DC. Biden used the office as part of his relationship with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was professor emeritus from 2017 to 2019.

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Another source said less than a dozen classified documents were found in Biden's office. It is unclear what the documents refer to or why they were taken to Biden's private office. Federal officials are required by law to turn in official papers and secret records when their public service ends.

“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives (NARA) and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration documents, including a small number of classified documents,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to President Biden, said in a statement. — The documents were discovered as the president's personal attorneys were packing up files kept in a locked cabinet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. The President used the space periodically from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign. On the day of this discovery, November 2, 2022, the White House Attorney's Office notified the National Archives. The archive received the materials the next morning.”

“The discovery of these documents was made by the president's lawyers,” Sauber added. — The documents were not the subject of any previous request or request by the Archives. Since this discovery, the President's personal attorneys have been cooperating with the archives and the Department of Justice in the process of ensuring that any Obama-Biden administration records are properly housed in the archives."

At the January 9 summit in Mexico City, Biden ignored reporters' questions about classified documents. Garland, who also attended the summit, sat to the president's left.

A senior administration official traveling with Biden says the issue will not affect the president's schedule.

“Nothing has changed in his schedule,” the official said. “He is focused on the summit and meeting with our closest neighbors.”

The X-Files included some top-secret files marked "sensitive sensitive information," also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.

After the discovery, Biden's lawyers immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration, which began investigating the matter, the source said. Biden's team worked with NARA, which later viewed the situation as a mistake due to a lack of guarantees for documents, the source said.

In November, NARA sent a referral to the Department of Justice to look into the matter, according to a source familiar with the matter.

U.S. Attorney in Chicago John Laush Jr. is investigating. Lausch was one of the rare remnants of the Trump era who wasn't asked to step down after Biden's inauguration. He was nominated by Trump in 2017 and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. In 2021, two Democratic senators from Illinois said they wanted Lausch to remain in his top job "to complete confidential investigations," though they did not disclose which investigations he was working on.

Political consequences

The discovery of the materials came as Special Counsel Jack Smith was investigating Donald Trump for possible mishandling of classified records at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Federal investigators found at least 325 classified documents in Trump's possession as part of their investigation.

Republicans are already asking Biden questions.

"President Biden was very critical of President Trump mistakenly delivering classified documents to the residence or somewhere else, and now it appears he may have done the same thing," said Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who would become Chairman of House Oversight. “What irony.”

Comer pointed out that the National Archives falls under the jurisdiction of his oversight committee, but said that when they, being in the minority, sent Trump-related questions to NARA, NARA sent Republicans to the Justice Department.

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"Maybe they will answer our questions now because it's about two presidents," Comer said, adding that he plans to request more information from the archives later this week.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not say whether he thinks the incoming GOP Congress should investigate Biden, but said the reaction to Trump's possession of classified documents was political.

Differences between document openings

However, the Trump papers saga is different than the Biden situation.

Biden's lawyers said they handed over the classified materials and notified NARA as soon as they were discovered. But in the Trump situation, NARA itself realized that key records were missing, and NARA officials bargained with Trump's team over the return of government documents.

Trump eventually returned 15 boxes of materials to NARA. But federal investigators later correctly suspected that he was still holding dozens of additional classified files. So, Justice Department prosecutors got a grand jury subpoena, and later got the judge's permission to search Mar-a-Lago for documents.

Ever since the FBI ransacked Mar-a-Lago in August that uncovered dozens of additional classified files, Trump has been pushing wild and unsubstantiated allegations of his predecessors' alleged mishandling of government documents. News of the secret recordings found in Biden's private office will no doubt give fresh food to Trump, who has already announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.

On Truth Social, Trump wrote: "When is the FBI going to raid many of Joe Biden's homes, maybe even the White House? These documents have definitely not been declassified."

Biden was critical of the Trump situation when he saw an FBI photograph showing an array of documents found on Trump's property last summer.

“How could this happen? How can someone be so irresponsible? - Biden said. “And I thought, what kind of data is there that could compromise the sources and methods?” By this I mean people's names. Completely irresponsible."

Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served on the House Select Committee on the investigation January 6, said on January 9 that the investigation could dispel some of Trump's political hurdles.

"The only thing Trump needs now is to be able to put aside his doubts and say, 'Look, this happened, too,'" Kinzinger told Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." “So from a political point of view it’s probably pretty bad.” Not just for the president, but for the idea of ​​getting justice through the political system.”

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Kinzinger suggested that the investigation into Biden would boil down to which of the former vice president's employees handled the documents and whether the possession of the documents was intentional or accidental.

“There will be nuances,” Kinzinger said. "I'll tell you, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago is a very honest man, Mr. Lausch, and so I think we can trust his words."

One can recall the Hillary Clinton email scandal that erupted in March 2015. Then it became known that during her tenure as US Secretary of State (2009-2013), she used her personal e-mail and personal server for correspondence, including sending secret documents with their help.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• On August 8, the FBI issued search warrant at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents that may have been brought there.
• The National Archives (NARA) discovered more 700 pages of classified material, including "Special Access Program Materials", one of the government's most secret documents, in 15 boxes seized from the estate. And the search party Trump discovered documents in the federal depository in West Palm Beach (Florida). But Trump disputes the classification stating that the documents were declassified.
• The question arises: who in the United States has access to top secret documents, and how unique are the papers that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago.

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