I think the key difference between Biden’s situation vs. Trump’s situation is process vs. person.
In Biden’s case, we have a problem with process. Classified documents are not as secure as they are supposed to be if someone can end up with a dozen of them in different locations without trying and without any kind of malicious intent. But Biden’s strength here is that he is cooperating and helping secure the system against this kind of thing happening in the future. Biden is also fully okay with admitting fault even though he could have pulled a Trump and said “I’m President so don’t worry about it”.
Trump on the other hand, had malicious intent and straight up stole dozens of boxes of secrets for his own gain. Trump does not understand the concept of responsibility or the importance of secrecy. When politely asked to return the materials he stole, Trump made excuses, lied, obstructed, went judge shopping, filed lawsuits and wasted everyone’s time while still endlessly whining about witch hunts. You can have as airtight of a process as possible and Trump would either ignore it or figure out a way around it. For reference see his entire Presidency.
You really believe that Donald Trump gave her a free pass while he was in charge?!
The fact that nothing happened to her once Trump was in office is all the evidence you need that it was pure campaign propaganda. There was nothing there.
Whether it’s the 2nd or 3rd “batch”, after the first finding I’m almost certain that Biden or his lawyers would have ordered a very thorough search of all of his properties and offices, so any additional classified docs found probably result from that.
Apparently it’s from the same search, but the lawyers didn’t have the proper clearances, so they stepped aside after finding one document with classification markings and called in the DOJ to complete the search.
Sauber said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s personal lawyers, who did not have security clearances, stopped their search after finding the first page on Wednesday evening. Sauber found the remaining material Thursday, as he was facilitating their retrieval by the Department of Justice.
“While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages," Sauber said. “The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.”
This steady drip of disclosures looks far worse than one big revelation would have, in my opinion. The hits just keep coming.
Absolutely. Each new disclosure brings a fresh round of news stories and makes it seem like a much bigger issue than it is. And each time, Biden’s people have to explain why his improper handling of classified national security documents is different from Trump’s improper handling of classified national security documents. That’s not a space that any politician wants to be in.
Barring findings of intentional misconduct, I think this will blow over (outside of the nutty right-wing echo chamber, which will continue with “Biden crime family” nonsense until hell freezes over, no matter the facts) in a few months. Further, an exoneration from a Republican special counsel (which seems likely to me after a few months, again presuming no intentional mishandling) would be a useful political counterpoint to a presumable Trump prosecution (obviously still TBD).
Very dumb by whatever Biden staffers misplaced these docs. But if it was accidental, this should blow over, politically speaking, IMO. Any Republican who wants to attack Biden about this will either have to attack Trump as well (thus resulting in a Trump counter-attack) or look so obviously hypocritical that only the die-hard nuts will buy it.
Someone misplaced them. I presume Biden staffers, but I suppose it could be someone else (family members or cleaning staff who didn’t know what they were dealing with, perhaps).
These disclosures are pretty much an indictment of the entire apparatus for protecting classified materials. Apparently these documents are from his time as Vice President. How did no one notice they were missing for (at least) six years? Surely someone in the intelligence community is responsible for tracking and securing classified documents.
All classified docs are supposed to be kept in a secure storage (like a safe), with logs and regular audits. Where this often goes “wrong” is if someone prints or copies a classified doc (from a classified computer and printer), and then forgets to lock them up and log them (or destroy them) when they’re done using them for the day.
Well, Trump has that problem, too, which AFAIK has not been looked into. Going off just memory, I believe Ivanka was not using a secure server, and Trump ran around using his personal phone for everything and sat in the middle of Mar-a-Lago with world leaders on the other end of the line.
It is also interesting that the problem was discovered at all, and apparently by the States Attorney Office in Chicago? I read somewhere that that office notified either the DOJ or the FBI in November that they should take a look at what is in the archives at that Penn/Biden think tank. Just weird.
I do agree with most everyone else, though, that the whole thing is just an error by someone, probably a staffer who either didn’t notice the error or felt it was too much hassle to clear up at the late date in which it happened.
RE: everything bolded - is it you who’s saying it’s arguably a bigger deal, or is it “a number of sides” saying it’s arguably a bigger deal?
(Because, nah - the Mar-a-Lardo situation was probably a bigger deal than Hilary’s home server)
Sure, derail, but I couldn’t let that slip by.
Please let Delaware be the final stupid snafu here.
You are right, sloppy writing on my part, and I am no doubt guilty of sloppy thinking on occasion as well. I’ll just say that having classified documents in one’s home is illegal. Someone a lot smarter than I will decide whether that matters in these cases.
But to my initial posting, where I mentioned that Taibbi had questioned that maybe there was a move afoot to get Biden to decide to retire, I saw on Youtube tonight that Tucker Carlson addressed this exact thing. Tucker: Biden is in serious trouble tonight - YouTube
Carlson is fun to hate but he sure does have a staff that can make an interesting 10 minute case.
I don’t understand how you can blame this on ‘staffers’ without any evidence. Documents have now been found in three places (or is it four now?) They’ve been in Biden’s possession for years. He owns this.
No one else come to mind?