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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/what-to-do-about-bidens-classified-docs

WHAT TO DO ABOUT BIDEN’S CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS? On Monday evening came one of those stories that seem almost too convenient to be true. CBS News reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a U.S. attorney to investigate classified documents found in an office used by President Joe Biden after he left the vice presidency.

What???!!! Does that mean the current president improperly held classified documents like his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, is accused of doing? As if on cue, reporters at a number of news outlets jumped into action, determined to explain to readers that the cases are totally different. Worried that Republicans would “seize” on the news to suggest an equivalence between Biden and Trump, many in the media sought to portray the two investigations as entirely dissimilar affairs: Trump bad, Biden not bad.

But there are some distinct similarities, both in what we know and what we don’t know, about the Biden and Trump investigations. First, the most obvious: Both men apparently kept classified information at a place they used for business after leaving office. As commentators reminded us many, many times during the Trump investigation, that can be a very serious problem. Both men had the highest access to classified information, Biden as vice president and Trump as president. And both men left those high offices to set up working spaces in other places, Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Here is a really important similarity. In neither case do we know what the classified documents were. All through the Trump investigation, with so much sensational and overwrought reporting — all through that time, the public never knew what the documents were that Trump allegedly mishandled. Were they truly the nation’s most important national security secrets? Or were they examples of the overclassification that plagues the federal government, when noncritical information is classified at a higher level than it deserves, if it should be classified at all? We don’t know the answer in the Trump case, and we don’t know the answer in the Biden case.

There are reports that the Biden documents include “U.S. intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom,” according to CNN. That could obviously be important, given, to cite just one reason, the Biden family’s business interests in Ukraine. With Trump, there were reports that the Mar-a-Lago documents included “highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China,” according to the Washington Post. Of course, the Post also reported the Trump materials included “classified documents relating to nuclear weapons,” although no other news outlet seemed to have confirmed that big scoop. The bottom line on all of that, both the Biden and the Trump documents, is that the public doesn’t know. People have no way to assess the seriousness of the situation if they don’t know what the classified documents are.

All those unknowns did not stop the commenting class from going nuts about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents. With Biden, the commentary is much more restrained.

There are differences, or apparent differences, between the cases. The biggest is the number of documents involved, although that is not entirely clear. In the Trump case, we know that various searches, including the infamous Aug. 8, 2022, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, found around 300 classified documents. In the Biden case, Biden’s lawyers have been telling reporters that there were “roughly 10” documents involved, which the lawyers say they discovered when they were cleaning out Biden’s old office in early November 2022. (By the way, two years into the president’s term, why were they cleaning out his old office? And does that sort of thing normally require lawyers?) The New York Times said Biden’s lawyers characterized the total documents discovered as a “small number,” although it also noted, “Officials did not describe precisely how many documents were involved, what kind of information they included, or their level of classification.” At the moment, everyone is relying on Biden’s lawyers to characterize the situation, which is not at all clear.

Another difference is the way Biden and Trump have handled the situation. There’s no doubt Trump dragged things out, partially complied, and in general resisted the government’s efforts to collect documents in his possession. The special counsel investigating Trump, Jack Smith, is looking into whether Trump actually obstructed justice in the matter. On the other hand, Biden’s defenders say the president and his lawyers have done everything by the book, informing the National Archives and making sure all the correct procedures were followed once the documents were discovered. On the other hand, it is unclear why they took so long to do it.

Indeed, the timing of the Biden revelation looks … odd. The way the Biden team tells it, his personal lawyers were cleaning out his old office at the Penn Biden Center when they came upon the classified documents mixed in with other, nonclassified papers. The discovery occurred on Nov. 2, six days before the hotly contested midterm elections. Can you imagine the effect such news — Biden kept classified documents! — would have had on the general political atmosphere of that moment? That could have been why the Biden team kept it all quiet. The public did not learn about the story until two months later.

From the New York Times: “The White House statement said that it ‘is cooperating’ with the [Justice Department] but did not explain why Mr. Biden’s team waited more than two months to announce the discovery of the documents, which came a week before the midterm congressional elections when the news would have been an explosive last-minute development.”

There’s another issue, as well. While this was going on, Garland was selecting a special counsel to take over the Trump investigation on the grounds the Justice Department would have a conflict investigating Trump, who announced his 2024 candidacy on Nov. 15, 2022. Garland confirmed the appointment of Smith on Nov. 18. It is unclear what was going on in the Biden classified documents case at the same time.

So now the story is out, at least the earliest version of the story is out. No one seems to know why the federal officials involved — officials from the National Archives and Records Administration, who were so vigilant in pursuing Trump documents — did not have, for nearly seven years, even a suspicion that Biden might be holding classified records.

The one person who seems to know absolutely nothing about the situation is Joe Biden himself. Consulting some sort of prepared text during a news conference at the summit in Mexico City Tuesday, Biden said he was “surprised” to learn that he had kept classified documents. “When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me — a secure office in the Capitol, when I — the four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn. They found some documents in a box — you know, a locked cabinet or at least a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box. And they did what they should have done: They immediately called the Archives.”

“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn there were any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said. “But I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were.” Message: I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

Biden was entirely unclear about what his lawyers were doing, why, and when. The only thing he is clear on is that he knew absolutely nothing about what his lawyers had done. Absolutely nothing. Whatever Biden knew or didn’t know, hopefully, the public will soon learn more about what really went on.

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