- Anthony Zurcher
- BBC North American correspondent
image source, Getty Images
The revelation that aides to Joe Biden discovered classified documents while removing boxes from the US president’s private offices in Washington already had the potential to be a political headache.
And now that a second batch has been found, in a garage at Biden’s home in Delaware, the mess will deepen even further.
The case maywould put in legal risk to the agentAlthough it is early to draw conclusions because very little information is known about what documents they are and why they were not stored securely in the US National Archives.
Biden’s opponents are quick to draw comparisons between these revelations and the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified material following his departure from the White House in January 2021.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Republican Kevin McCarthy, has asked Congress to investigatethe presidentaccusing him of hypocrisy and double standards.
Faced with questions from the press this Thursday, Biden said he would speak about it “soon.” But he assured that the documents had not been exposed “in the street”, but rather secured, and that they were turned over to the Department of Justice immediately.
“People know that I take classified documents and classified material seriously. (…) As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president might be stored. [2009-2017]. And they finished the review last night,” he noted.
In addition, US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the matter of Biden’s documents.
How do the two cases compare?
The key is in the number, type, and location of the files.
According to US press reports, Biden’s personal lawyers found 10 classified documentssome marked as “Top Secret“ (top secret), kept in a box with other materials.
It was in a filing cabinet Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement from the University of Pennsylvania, a private consulting office of the Democrat.
That is in contrast to the more than 325 classified files, including some marked top secret or top secret, discovered last year at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida mansion.
It is not yet known how many files were found in the second batch of Biden.
image source, US Department of Justice
An image released by the Justice Department showed some of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Thedifference between Biden’s think tank office and Trump’s personal residence It could be remarkable, though it’s not entirely surprising given the former president’s penchant for mixing business and personal affairs.
Documents discovered in Biden’s office were marked as “compartmentalized confidential information” (SCI)according to CNN, indicating that the material could involve intelligence-gathering methods and sources.
According to press reports, they included information about Ukraine, Iran and United Kingdom.
Of the 300 Trump documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, some were similarly marked SCI.
The origins of the investigations
According to Biden’s special counsel, his personal legal advisors discovered the classified documents as they left the Biden Center offices in Washington on November 2.
The next day handed over the material to the National Archive.
There are still not many details about how the second finding came about, but they did form part of a search of all the offices Biden usedmotivated by the first discovery.
In Trump’s case, National Archives officials initiated contact with Trump’s office after determining that he was missing some prominent records from his presidential term, such as correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. .
image source, US Department of Justice
Some documents found in the Trump mansion were marked SCI.
The former president’s team conducted a search of his storage facility at Mar-a-Lago and provided the government with some material, including classified documents, but archivists did not believe the president’s team had fully cooperated.
That started the FBI investigation leading to the raid in August of the Mar-a-Lago property and the discovery of more than 100 additional documents.
The matter has now been turned over to Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who could investigate whether Trump or his team violated federal law by obstructing the document collection process or destroying government materials.
This Thursday, the US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, appointed Robert How, a prosecutor who has worked on terrorism and corporate fraud, such as the head of the investigation into the Biden case.
Trump’s reaction
In the days after the Mar-a-Lago raid, Trump accused the FBI and Justice Department of conducting a politically motivated investigation in an effort to prevent him from running for the White House again (a campaign he would later launch in november).
Biden, for his part, said Trump’s handling was “totally irresponsible”.
image source, Archyde.com
Trump has insisted that the case against him is politically motivated.
Now that the president himself is being accused of mishandling classified information, Trump has quickly gone on the offensive.
“¿When is the FBI going to raid Joe Biden’s many homes?maybe even the White House?”, he questioned on his social media platform.
Biden has said that he is “shocked” that there were confidential documents in his former office and that he is fully cooperating with the review.
As more details of the second discovery emerge, the president may have to offer a clearer explanation.
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