I hope so, but I’m kind of losing my hope. It was kind of feeling like nothing was going to happen, before this, and now Biden and team’s carelessness with documents is giving Trump more ammunition than he could have ever even hoped for in his little black heart.
Throughout December I really leaned.into maybe a 75% chance that Trump would be indicted on something related to the documents because it’s simply SO egregious that he tried to hide them and keep them. But now I’m kind of leaning toward probably not. And I hate it not just because I despise Trump but because he took my country’s documents and tried to keep them for himself, at the very least so he could play “I’m still the president” in his mind.
These attorneys that are finding these documents in Biden’s offices … are they private attorneys working in Joe Biden’s interests, or are they instead federal attorneys, or what? I’m unclear on how the media got wind of all this.
I’m going to stick by what I said during the height of the bedlam around the Trump documents. It is completely unsurprising that documents with classified markings wind up where they shouldn’t be. So much is marked classified these days, even when it possibly shouldn’t be, that it becomes impossible to correctly handle this stuff unless you literally work entirely in a SCIF.
Likely this is completely innocuous information that either has been declassified or probably should be that got mixed in with other related information.
The focus on the Trump case should have always been on the defiance of the subpoena and the active obstruction of justice, not the documents themselves.
Reporters should also be much more careful about the distinction between “documents with classification markings” and “classified documents”. In both the Biden case and the Trump case.
I feel like that has always been the DOJ’s focus. But the media is going to report whatever sounds most salacious, and so the nature of the documents is what gets in the headlines.
Heh. Fair point. But it happens in these threads regarding Trump as well.
So far as I am aware, there is no solid reporting that the documents in Trump’s possession contained classified information, only that they had classification markings. There have been various leaks re: the contents and the types of markings but nothing solid about the actual contents.
Exactly. And that’s going to screw up the politics of the whole situation. Because now what Trump did and what Biden did sound exactly the same.
No, because Biden voluntarily reported the documents and started his own search for more; Trump had his lawyers sign an affidavit that there were no documents, and even if there were you can’t make me give them back.
I completely understand and agree. I’m talking about the political impact of the two situations. For the low-information voter that only reads headlines, the two situations are the same.
And if DOJ prosecutes Trump on the obstruction charges it will be difficult to communicate the difference in the cases in a way that won’t seem like nitpicking and procedural nonsense to the same low-information voter.
Furthermore, it feeds right into the pre-built “Democrats are using FBI/DOJ/IRS/PTO/School Board/Facebook/etc to persecute their political opponents” narrative the the GOP is basically running on these days.
I think this is a good thing. Show that it’s serious, and that no matter who you are it is a situation not to be taken lightly.
Of course, Republicans are showing their full mastery of cognitive dissonance.
“I think Congress has to investigate this,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy suggested because Biden’s personal lawyers made the discovery, he must have known classified documents were there. “I think he owes a lot of answers to the American public,” McCarthy said.
“This discovery of classified information would put President Biden in potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act,” Turner said. [Note: The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio]
Funny, I never hear any of that when Trump is involved.
This has been baked in for a very long time. Not much we can do about it except continue to point out the factual differences.
Agree.
My go-to comparison between the 2 situations is this:
Imagine someone is carrying a container full of acid. That person is distracted for a moment, stumbles and falls, losing control of the container. The acid splashes out and some of it hits a bystander. The action was clearly unintentional, but it still has bad consequences.
Compare this to someone who looks a bystander in the eye and then deliberately splashes the acid onto their person. Same consequences. But can you really compare this to the previous scenario?
Investigations should occur in both situations. In the first, to determine if there are better ways to carry containers full of acid. Maybe put a lid on the container, for starters.
In the second, in addition to the investigation outlined above, criminal charges should ensue for the intentional and deliberate nature of the action.
Noting that there’s a considerable difference in degree and handling of the Trump/Biden situations, the least that should come out of all this is an agreement on education for Presidents, VPs and other high officials on what documents (and for that matter, furniture and knicknacks) you can take with you when leaving office.
Maybe a mandatory tutorial that also covers e-mails, taping systems and suchlike.
The loosey-goosey way in which classified documents appear to be handled is quite troubling.
I find it hard to argue with people who say that their local public library has a better handle on who has what books checked out than our nation has on its – allegedly – most closely-guarded secrets.
Would I say the same thing if it was Biden first and Trump second? I hope so
This. Either they are treating classified documents quite cavalierly, or boring everyday dispatches are marked ‘classified’ willy-nilly. Maybe a bit of column A, a bit of column B. There should definitely be a procedure, a log,—something— that lists who has what so that it can be returned to the proper place.
As of now I assume it’s only loosey goosey with the top of the executive branch. I don’t expect this happens much with the rank and file.
I am, however, no longer outraged by Trump’s initial pilfering of the documents. It’s starting to feel like document security with the president and VP are just generally kind of lax. If true, and Trump was aware of that, then I give him a pass on initially taking the documents.
It’s the stonewalling and not returning them that remains the issue, but I used to also hold it against him that he took the documents in the first place. Now? Not so much.
I’m predicting this will happen (if it hasn’t already).
“This just shows how deep the partisan corruption has gone. Why is it that the FBI raided Mar-A-Lago with warrants, and that didn’t happen to Joe Biden? Clearly it’s because they have it out for Donald Trump.”
I think it has already happened. The House wants to investigate the FBI and why/how the Dems use the levers of government against the honest, god-fearing, pure as the driven snow Republicans.
