Biden’s Classified Documents!
Just like Trump's except for every important detail.
![[Top Secret Clip Art]](https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/top-secret-stamp-magnifying-glass-clearance-large-e1527939454809.jpg)
CBS News (“U.S. attorney reviewing documents marked classified from Joe Biden’s vice presidency found at Biden think tank“):
Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review documents marked classified that were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told CBS News. The roughly 10 documents are from President Biden’s vice-presidential office at the center, the sources said. CBS News has learned the FBI is also involved in the U.S. attorney’s inquiry.
The material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, just before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets.
Sauber also said that on the same day the material was discovered, Nov. 2, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives, which took possession of the materials the following morning.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber said. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
A source familiar with the matter said representatives from the National Archives then notified the Justice Department.
Garland assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to find out how the material marked classified ended up at the Penn Biden Center. The review is considered a preliminary step, and the attorney general will determine whether further investigation is necessary, including potentially appointing a special counsel.
Lausch was nominated to be U.S. attorney by former President Donald Trump, and he is one of only two current Trump-era U.S. attorneys still serving. The other is Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is leading an investigation into the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Lausch recently briefed the attorney general and will eventually submit a final report to Garland. The review is expected to conclude soon.
WaPo (“Justice Dept. reviewing classified documents found in Biden’s post-VP office“) presents essentially the same facts but adds this:
While the Biden case has obvious echoes of the Mar-a-Lago investigation, the details provided by Biden’s lawyer on Monday suggest key differences that could factor heavily in whether the Biden documents become a criminal matter.
Sauber said the Biden documents were discovered by the president’s lawyers and voluntarily turned over to authorities. By comparison, in Trump’s case, NARA officials pressed for material to be returned, and then Trump’s office was served with a grand jury subpoena demanding their return. After Trump’s lawyers handed over 38 classified documents in response to the subpoena, an FBI search recovered more than 100 additional classified documents that were not turned over to authorities.
The Biden documents “were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives,” Sauber said in the statement. “Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
Much of the criminal investigation into the keeping of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence, has centered on what officials have described in court papers as possible obstruction of the efforts to recover all of the documents. So far, no such allegation has been leveled in the Biden matter, though it is at an earlier stage.
One person familiar with the Biden inquiry, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing review, argued that while there are obvious similarities with the Trump case, so far the circumstances appear to be quite different. That person said the voluntary notification, and the sheer difference in the number of documents stand out as key differences.
“But at the heart of it is, in both situations classified national security information went somewhere it shouldn’t have, so that raises a bigger question about the handling of classified [material], both in the White House and then during the period of transition,” the person added.
Legal experts say that it is not uncommon for some people who have security clearances to mishandle classified documents. But these situations are typically handled administratively, not criminally, because the criteria for prosecuting people who mishandle classified documents include proving that the person deliberately flouted rules for how to secure the materials.
Which is pretty much my reaction when reading the CBS report. Both Biden and Trump wound up taking classified documents into private spaces in violation of the law. It’s almost certain that Biden did so inadvertently, whereas Trump certainly knew he had them. Moreover, he could presumably have gotten away with keeping them—or simply destroying them—rather than turning them over to the proper authorities which he says he did—and I have no reason to doubt him—the same day they were discovered. Conversely, Trump refused for an extended period to turn them over even after repeated requests, only doing so when his compound was raided by the DOJ.
The right wing media, like summer cicadas, are making their usual noises. It is all so predictable and tiresome.
Reality has not stopped GOPs from saying Obama took thousands of classified documents when he left office. Which, as I understand it, is true, except that they’re in a NARA facility associated with his presidential library and have been in NARA’s possession and control the whole time. (I’ve heard nothing about a Trump library. Would seem like a way to milk the rubes.)
Also too, they never mention that a probe by Trump SOS Tillerson, and again by Pompeo, showed Hillary’s email contained exactly zero classified items. Won’t stop GOPs from saying Dem ex-prezes all took top secret stuff and the weaponized agencies are only going after Trump. Investigate!
Implied but not expressly stated in the above…these documents were NOT in Biden’s personal possession.
Not in his desk drawer. Not intermingled with other active documents. Not (presumably) showing the fingerprints of eight other people. And not mere feet away from a location where we know at least one foreign agent to have been.
Seriously – how often do you think Biden is actually at this place? The headline photo on their website, with Biden in it, is from 2018. It’s the equivalent of a Presidential Library. Has anyone heard one word about a potential Trump Presidential Library? Lol…sponsored by Crayola Crayons.
Not that it will make any difference to the MAGA heads. This is…. unfortunate to say the least. The House GOP will hammer this repeatedly from now until the end of time just like they did with HRC’s emails.
It seems clear that we classify far too many documents, just on the basis of we can’t/don’t track them closely enough to know when some have gone missing.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
That said, if laws were broken then they should be prosecuted.
Same with Hunter Biden.
But, as with the Hunter Biden story, I just don’t see the criminality.
I only see the right wing faux outrage machine.
@Michael Cain:
According to Rosa Brooks, from her time working at the State Dept. and the Pentagon, memos tend to be ignored or dismissed when they’re not marked classified.
One thing missing in the current reporting is whether NARA knew Biden had these documents, and whether he had them with their knowledge and assent. There’s a vast chasm separating the act of not returning a library book vs stealing books from the library.
I believe another important element to note here is that whether the documents are classified or not, they are still Presidential records (assuming) and should not have been taken or kept. So even if they were mentally declassified, they should not be retained by any ex-President.
The Republicans/Trumpers will always try to simplify the message and use words that don’t mean or apply to change and shape their points…don’t let them get away with framing the topic their way….correct them every chance you get.
*Much like my pet peeve that Congress had no role in _certifying_ the Election…that term implies to the public some sort of power or authority to investigate or ascertain the legitimacy of the votes….which they don’t/didn’t have…the Constitution says they count votes, the Electoral Count Act (sp) says they have strict rules to object to the count and vote, but no investigatory powers or process to allow them to ‘certify‘ something. Republicans kept relying on the term ‘certify’ to imply they were allowed…no, required to determine if the supposedly suspect results were legitimate before they ‘certify‘ the election (and even the Government Press Releases and news reporters use the term, damn it!)…sorry, rant over (for now)….
The politics will be what they are and the accusations will follow. But what is really interesting here is that we have executives from two administrations who inadvertently or intentionally removed classified information from their respective offices. This really brings into question what kind of document control exists in the executive branch, particularly as it relates to classified information?
In the case of Biden, it seems that those responsible for protecting classified info, didn’t even know that the docs were missing till Biden’s lawyers contacted them. While in the case of trump, they knew some docs were missing, but not what or how many. This is still a problem as the DoJ has figured out that there is a discrepancy in what they have, from what appears missing.
If the House R’s want something useful to investigate, which they don’t, they’d look into how the executive branch manages and protects classified information.
There is classified and there is CLASSIFIED. We still haven’t heard the level of classification, which is critically important because it defines the level of care that must be applied.
Administrative working documents, for example the seating arraignments for an upcoming diplomatic event, are temporarily classified at the CONFIDENTIAL level while in development to avoid ruffling feathers on the international community. They are declassified when finalized. If Biden’s “trove of documents” is a handful of these shuffled in with other working documents the country can rest. No lives are at stake.
And this would be a common thing, as CONFIDENTIAL information doesn’t need the elaborate safeguards used for higher classification levels. You can hand-carry CONFIDENTIAL information from office to office with nothing more than a cover folder that says it’s CONFIDENTIAL.
I’ll take interest in this story if there are SECRET documents, great interest if there are TOP SECRET, and a reasonable level of alarm if some have TS SCI markings, as some in the Trump trove did.
@gVOR08:
“I’ve heard nothing about a Trump library.”
As libraries, and thier evil contents are tools used by the elites to brainwash the masses, I would be surprised if there were plans to build one. However don’t rule ot a Trump presidential interactive center, complete with, fog machines, laser lights, and arena sized video screens. NFTs for partial ownership any one?
While the usual suspects will play the usual partisan game, as a former intel guy and security manager, I’ll just make a couple of general points:
– Security at the White House really sucks. You’ve now had three of the most senior government officials (President, SECSTATE, and VP) handle/take classified material out of secured spaces without anyone knowing about it until much later. The obvious question is: What else has walked that we don’t know about? If this were any other place but the White House, then the security managers would have been at least fired long ago.
– Special treatment for “important” people continues. I’m still a bit butthurt that Sandy Berger stole classified material from the national archives to cover up the Clinton administration’s dealings with the Taliban and only got a slap on the wrist. Political officials suffer no consequences except bad press, while a host of partisan tribalists will try to rationalize, excuse, and bring up red herrings to defend them. I realize that complaining about disparate treatment between elites and the little people is tilting at windmills, but it’s worth pointing out once more how pervasive it is. There’s an old military quip: “Rank has its privileges,” and there is no better example of that than classified information security by the White House specifically and senior officials generally.
Finally, one thing I’ve explained before is that the White House operates in its own bubble. Most of the government has moved away from paper classified documents completely and even local digital storage for reasons that should be obvious. Printers are controlled (ask Reality Winter). But the White House is different. Stuff gets printed hard copy all the time and taken out of the SCIF for the convenience of senior officials. It’s clear from Trump and now Biden that none of these documents are serialized and tracked for accountability, so there is no way to know if/when they go missing. And when the previous administration moves out, there is no inspection of boxes and documents, which is SOP for just about everyone else in government. If you think foreign intelligence services aren’t aware of all of this, you are kidding yourself.
Let’s see how much of the bait the RW media takes on this. If they really are ready to move on from Trump, the last thing they need is the futility of the endless rage/resentment discourse about how Biden is exactly like Trump.
@ImProPer:
Trump may be waiting for his triumphal reinstatement in 2024 (or sooner) before he reveals any plans for a presidenital library and casino.
@Andy:
Three lol
James Comey was using unsecured private email for sensitive, official communications…while investigating Hillary’s supposedly negligent use of a private email server
Officials throughout the Trump White apparently (including Trump and Javanka) refused to use secured government phones, instead using their own personal cell phones for high level, highly-sensitive communications
Secs. Of States Powell and Rice both used private email during their time at State. I believe it was Powell who told Hillary that doing so was nbd
And of course there was the Bush administration’s RNC housed private server that magically lost 10,000 never-recovered emails during the Plame affair
Not to mention all the congresscritters found to be using unsecured private email instead of goverment email in the midst of their Emailghazigatepalooza grandstanding.
Anyway, because of the Great National Bitch Hunt of 2015-2016, we now have to pretend that all this supposed mishandling of classified material is newfangled and treacherous, but the devil will continue to be the details. What was taken/mishandled? How and for what intent? And did you cooperate or obstruct when errors were found?
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Shhhhh. If we play this right, Democrats might be able use this to get a 2024 nominee was born after WW2 ended.
@Andy: Odd I cannot find anything about the documents being Taliban related. The only information I can find out specifically states that everything he stole had copies and/or originals still sitting around. Could you link some citations so that I might become aware of this? Because it’s not much of a cover up when you leave copies behind…
Also Sandy Berger lost his law license and is unable to practice in his primary vocation as a result. What kind of punishment would you find to be acceptable?
@ImProPer: But can they have the fun of banning books from aTrump “interactive center, complete with, fog machines, laser lights, and arena sized video screens.”
@Andy:
I still want to know what was in the safes, plural, Dick Cheney reportedly had in his office.
@Scott: I lived in Korea for eight years and always liked the sound of the cicadas*. Much better than the droning of RWNJs. Musical by comparison.
*And boy are they loud. You can hear them from the inside of a bus going by a clump of bushes.
@gVOR08: “(I’ve heard nothing about a Trump library. Would seem like a way to milk the rubes.)”
Either he can’t get donations for a Trump library, can’t launder the donations for a Trump library successfully, or doesn’t see why the government shouldn’t build one for him.
@Matt:
After reviewing the original IG report, the only publicly named document he took was the Millennium Alert After Action Report (MAAAR), which was a report regarding AQ terrorism. So it wasn’t about negotiation with the Taliban directly, at least as far as we know, so I got that wrong. And a lot of that has since been declassifed.
The context of Berger’s thefts was in preparation for the 9/11 commission. Unfortunately, the NARA staff didn’t catch on to what he was doing until his third visit and wasn’t caught until the fourth visit. NARA had not inventoried and serialized everything, so they could only account for documents that were, and Berger may have stolen stuff that was never recovered. It was never exactly clear why Berger did what he did (at least from what I remember), but the logical explanation is that he wanted to prevent certain documents from the Clinton administration from being sent to the 9/11 commission. Hence the reason he took every copy he could find of the MAAAR. BTW, a lot of the MAAAR was declassified and you can read it here.
Anyway, the point is that any normal person doing that – deliberately stealing classified documents would do time and never hold a clearance again. He got it easy with probation, a fine, and losing access to classified info for 3 years. Three freaking years. IIRC he lost his law license too.
@DK:
Most of your comment is irrelevant or misinformation. Without spending the time to go point-by-point, I’ll just state that the most obvious point is that there are major regulatory and legal differences between unclassified and sensitive government communications (ie. Using personal email for government business), and the mishandling of classified information. One shouldn’t conflate the two because they are not the same thing.
And the fact of the matter is that Biden, Trump, and HRC all had unsecured SCI/SAP-level material contrary to the law, which is why federal law enforcement is investigating or already investigated all three cases, as they are required to do.
Your defenses of HRC cannot avoid the fact that she was the subject of a federal criminal investigation regarding the mishandling of classified information, and that investigation found wrongdoing. Whether or not you think Clinton was justified in using a personal server for her unclassified government communications for her own personal convenience, the fact of the matter is that she and her staff allowed classified material – to include SAP information subject to greater controls – to leak onto her private unclassified system. Unlike Berger, this spillage of classified lacked evidence of deliberate and ill intent and therefore was not of sufficient scope or intent to warrant prosecution.
Trump is another matter, as James pointed out in his piece, and he ought to be prosecuted. With Biden, it is likely to end up more like with Clinton, at least considering what we now know.
@gVOR08:
I don’t know what that’s about, but having a safe in your government office to hold classified stuff is extremely normal, even for low-level personnel.
@CSK: Weren’t there some plans originally for a Prez library in a room at Mar a Lago? I remember reading something about that a while ago. That might be perfect for FG. He could sell one-day passes to MaL to people who wanted to visit the (no admission fee) library. It’s perfectly reasonable for someone who owns a private club to be able to charge daily fees to see the stuff in them.
ETA: Either way, it would be a bad idea to house the presidential library as an adjunct to a Trump casino. The library and it’s
tchotchkesartifacts would be lost when the casino went banko.@Andy: Thank you very much for the links as that was more than I was able to find with my google-fu.
I am still curious what you would consider proper punishment for him. I have no experience with this type of stuff so I lack a frame of reference.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
From memory, so suspect, but aren’t the contents of the Presidential libraries these days property of the National Archives, on loan? So first, he’d have to let the archivists in to inventory. And second, if the casino were to go belly up, the archivists would show up to remove their property.
I suspect that once Trump dies his kids will arrange something.
@Matt:
At a minimum, I think the permanent loss of clearance and at least some jail time. But it’s hard because I don’t know of a case exactly analogous to his – stealing documents from the NARA archive and destroying some of them.
Here’s a list of instances to get a feel for what typical punishments are.
Trump Presidential Library.
@Andy:
This isn’t true.
Melodramatic and overblown. The standards for what ends up with classified markings are woefully inconsistent, if not arbitrary. There’s no objective reason why anyone should believe none of Colin Powell’s deleted and unrecovered private emails, the Bush administration’s missing private server, or any of the communications on Trump and Jared’s private iPhones should all have been unclassified.
But I’ve clearly not avoided the fact she was subject to an investigatory witch hunt predicated on unprecedented double standards. There’s still no objective reason why she should have been investigated for this monthingburger while the Bush admin’s rampant use and deletion of private emails and use of least one one private server was not.
@Michael Cain: Yeah, I don’t follow any of this nonsense, and all I remember about presidential libraries is that the PhC who was teaching the Modern American History class that I took in grad school noted that she’d visited the FDR Library and that because her dissertation was on the Roosevelt administration, she got to see both manila envelopes of presidential papers. I’ve never been so I can’t say whether she was engaging in hyperbole or not, but her point was that Roosevelt was said to have been almost obsessive about not keeping paper records. Whether that’s a mafia-esque “never write anything down” obsession or something else is the job of historians and political scientists to decide.
@DK:
Classified markings are one of many red herrings which are no longer valid arguments once the situation has been fully investigated, which it was with Clinton, and is ongoing with Trump and just starting with Biden. In short, the investigation showed that TS/SAP and other material was transmitted on Clinton’s system, so this wasn’t a case of arbitrary classification markings.
I agree that their unclassified communications are very likely to have contained classified material. Indeed in my original comment I stated this:
In other words, the White House and senior government officials have a systemic problem. And a big part of that problem is – as I previously suggested – that senior officials think the rules do not apply to them, and it’s very often the case that the rules are not, in fact, applied to them. I think that’s a problem that ought to be addressed and fixed and is a much more interesting and relevant problem than partisan whattaboutism.
What is the double-standard, specifically?
The fact is that any known leakage of classified information is supposed to be investigated and in my career and after following such things I cannot think of a single case where leakage of classified info was shrugged away. Shrugging it away for Clinton is what would be a double-standard. And the fact that we have two Presidents who are also being investigated for mishandled classified information suggests your claims of a double standard are without merit.
And you are again conflating two different things. She wasn’t investigated for private emails, she was investigated for mishandling of classified information. If evidence shows that the Bush administration mishandled classified information, I would expect them to also be investigated just the same, but I’m not aware of any such information or credible allegations.
So to me your arguments calling Clinton’s mishandling of classified a nothingburger, while drawing equivalence to your assumptions that everyone (ie. Republicans you don’t like) has done the same thing – as if that makes it ok – defies logic.
Either one believes that highly sensitive government secrets should be kept secure according to the law and regulation, or one doesn’t. And one either supports the investigation of real or probable cases of mishandling such information consistent with the law, or one doesn’t. I support both those things on principle and apply them in all cases, what is your stance? Why, exactly, should they not have been applied to Clinton?
And, it’s strange you would make a fuss about Bush admin officials deleting private emails when Clinton and most everyone in government does the same thing. She was allowed to go through all her private and government emails, which were mixed because of her own choice, and decide what should be turned over and what should be deleted. As far as I’m aware, nothing about that is illegal for Clinton, Bush, Obama, or anyone else.
From what I remember when I worked in government, it was – at least at that time – up to individual employees to determine, using official guidance, what was and wasn’t an official record that must be retained. That’s what I did when I left government service. And it was easy to do because everything official was on my government systems because I followed the rules and did not mix my personal and government communications for my own convenience. That’s a practice that smart and honest people take care to do, and that most politicians and their courtiers routinely don’t.
@Andy:
Which to people who are actually smart and honest — not just intellectually dishonest performative bothsidesers who love to nail themselves to the cross of their imagined moral superiority — begs the question of why nobody cared to ivestigate whether or not the deleted emails throughout Bush administration were never probed to make such a determination. Since, of course, it’s such a big deal.
Well, the whole point is that if there was any such evidence it was deleted. Nobody bothered to look into that until the new double standard invented for Hillary’s email use and curation practice, which, as you rightly note, were “allowed” and not illegal.
We would know if there is leakage on the bush administration’s private emails and servers because they were deleted and nobody bothered to look at them like they looked at Hillary’s private emails. That’s the double standard. It defies logic that someone considers until smart can’t see that.
And again you are only partially telling the truth. She was investigated for Benghazi!!! 11!!, which turned into an investigation of her private emails, which then turned into an investigation of potential mishandling of classified information.
Again, we wouldn’t know if the Bush administration mishandled classified information on their private emails and private servers, because said use was not probed or scandalized. Because no one cared a lot that before Hillary’s presidential run.
An absurd statement, since the facts of the cases are incongruent. Hillary did not abscond with documents and refuse to turn them over. Not mention, logically, others being held to a standard invented for Hillary would not preclude the possibility that it was indeed a double standard when applied to her and no one prior to her.
Because they weren’t applied to anyone before Hillary ran for president.
Obviously not what I’m making a fuss over, as any truly honest and smart person would see/note. I’m making a fuss over nobody caring about government officials using or deleting private emails until it was time to tear down a woman presidential candidate in order to put neo-fascist white supremacy in power.
@Andy:
Well…
Assuming that NBC’s reporting is correct, I am certain that Powell would have been caught red-handed, too.
It is not unreasonable to complain about the blatant unfairness of “it is not a scandal until a Dem does it.”
And yes, Clinton (who was arrogant and stupid) should not have used a private email server as a matter of principle. But contemporary reporting strongly suggests that throwing around the TS/SAP acronym was just some performative bullshit meant to impress the rubes and to provide the Benghazi committee with some fresh ammunition – which worked brilliantly, btw.
But despite all the uproar and accusations, even Comey concluded that bringing charges “would have been unfair and virtually unprecedented.” I guess because in court you have to actually show your work.
So color me unimpressed.
This is stupidity begats stupidity.
Had Hillary’s Emails! been treated as what it was — a minor administrative kerfuffle of no import and involving no criminality — the battle to recover records from Trump likely would have remained an administrative tug of war, as apparently was Garland’s initial preference.
But since Trump and Republicans had elevated Hillary’s Emails! to the century’s biggest scandal, the DOJ was obliged to treat Trump with the same level of scrutiny. And then Trump being Trump, of course, made it worse by obstructing justice.
And now, so as not to appear biased, the DOJ has to “investigate” Biden for potential criminality rather than tell the National Archives to just take the documents back and go home.
But Her Emails: the dumb, sexist fiasco with disastrous consequences that keeps on giving.
This thread is starting to look like one of those “They have facts and we have alternate facts” discussions. Just sayin’. It may also be the more common “talking past each other” effect. Either way…
@gVOR08:
If there were a Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, it would be a disabled bookmobile piled haphazardly with soiled comic books and vintage Fredricks of Hollywood catalogs.
@DrDaveT: I prefer this one: https://djtrumplibrary.com/