There's an important difference between the document removals of Trump and Biden.
Biden focused on classified documents; Trump didn'.t
My friend Jim Dueholm, an occasional commenter on this blog, has a take on the Trump document removal vs. the Biden document removal that I haven’t seen elsewhere. Jim presented this take in a letter to the editor published today by the Washington Times. It reads as follows (the emphasis is mine):
President Trump took a lot more official documents when he left office than Vice President Biden did. The mainstream media points to the disparity to claim Mr. Trump's sin is worse than Mr. Biden's. In fact, it's the scant number of documents taken by Mr. Biden that gives real cause for concern.
Mr. Trump took a large trove of documents from the White House. Most were not classified, but many were. The abundance of Trump documents suggests someone threw documents into boxes helter-skelter, with no focus on classified documents.
Mr. Biden's actions, on the other hand, suggest a repeated focus on classified documents. There's been no claim Mr. Biden took non-classified government documents, which suggests a focus on classified material.
It appears government documents taken from Mr. Biden's house to his newly formed DC think tank were largely if not wholly classified, which suggests they were intentionally selected. The lawyers said they found a classified page separate from other documents in Mr. Biden's home library, which suggests it was being reviewed or had slipped from a bigger document that was being reviewed.
In sum, Sherlock Holmes might say the apparent lack of a large trove of purloined documents is a dog that doesn't bark.
I think Jim has pointed to an important distinction between the actions of Trump and Biden — one that cuts sharply against Biden.
I agree that the smaller amount of docs may mean they were intentionally selected. Here are the questions the press and Special Counsel should be asking from someone who had to sign for, store, and confirm return of classified docs. BTW, i have zero confidence we'll actually know what was stored or what was maybe swapped unless we can account for every class doc the VP signed for.
1. Classified docs have a documented and positive chain of custody (numbering, signatures, etc). Why didn't the National Archives determine in 2017 that certain documents signed over to the VP were missing or confirmed to have been destroyed? The National Archivist was much more diligent in 2021 retrieving President's Trump's missing classified material
2. What was the subject/content of the classified files? (BTW, POTUS has the power to declassify these files if the public demands to know the content) or Congressional investigators can ask for them
3. Given the Trump's interest Biden's ties to China and Ukraine, is there a record of visits to the National Archives by Biden surrogates after 2017 and were the classified files intentionally removed from the National Archives at any time? Socks precedent for this.. and we're not talking the cat.
4. CNN, in its comical review of the VP's last days conveniently forgot about Biden's private mtgs in the WH with Pres Obama, the NSA, CIA, and others on unmaskings, Russian collusion in the election, and the national security "threat" posed by incoming Trump officials which happened in those last frantic weeks. Were any of the discovered files related to those meetings?
5. Upon discovery of a classified file that may have been compromised by unsecure storage, there is a very specific and detailed protocol for notification and delivery of the files to security officials for a review of the impact to national security. This protocol definitely does NOT include calling the National Archives. Was the standard protocol for reporting and damage assessment followed?
6. Investigators much establish, given the storage of the documents and the time the docs were not secure, who possibly could have had access to the classified material in order to understand the impact to National security. Will that list of possible viewers be included in the Special Counsels report?
7. Classified material must be kept in a safe or a SCIF. The process of boxing up unclass for a departing official is different from accounting for classified. So, either someone intentionally moved classified material to the unclassified boxes or the VP himself co-mingled unclass and classified in his files. So much for “taking classified material seriously”
By focusing on Hunter, we're missing the bigger questions.
Utter b.s.