WASHINGTON — The U.S. The number of classified documents is vastly different, as are the discovery conditions.
But the revelation that President Joe Biden’s lawyers discovered a “limited number” of classified materials in a locked closet is an unexpected twist for a Justice Department already probing Donald Trump for the preservation of top secret documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Despite significant factual and legal disparities between the scenarios, Trump seized on the news to mitigate his vulnerability – at least in the eyes of the public. The information is unlikely to impact the Justice Department’s decision to charge Trump. However, it may make a criminal case more difficult to sell politically, increasing the mistrust of Republicans in Congress and others who have questioned the basis for a plausible prosecution.
“I don’t think it affects Trump’s legal judgment at all, but it certainly affects the political narrative going forward,” said a U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during Trump’s presidency.
A special counsel is leading the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and the Biden situation is being looked into by the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, who is still working for the Trump administration. All of this is taking place as newly elected Republicans gain control of the House, with plans to target the agency with allegations of politicized law enforcement.
People Call for Raids Of Bidens Home
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who is the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has already asked the director of national intelligence for a damage assessment of the classified information that was leaked. And, in response to the FBI’s discovery of boxes of secret records at Mar-a-Lago in August, Trump wondered on Twitter, “When is the FBI going to raid Joe Biden’s numerous houses, possibly even the White House?”
DOJ investigating potentially classified Biden documents
The White House says the Justice Department is evaluating potentially secret materials discovered in President Joe Biden’s former institute’s Washington office space and swiftly turned over to the National Archives. (Jan. 10)
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He later questioned why “the ‘Justice’ Department” had not made the information public before the November midterm elections.
The Differences Between Biden and Trump
There are differences between the situations of Trump and Biden, especially regarding the seriousness of the ongoing Mar-a-Lago grand jury investigation.
The search for his property came after months of back-and-forth between government officials and Trump representatives about the keeping of presidential records.
After finding classified information in a Palm Beach, Florida, home, the National Archives and Records Administration took 15 boxes from the House and called the FBI in January. However, Trump representatives rejected the Archives’ demands to surrender all papers for months. Even though officials from the Justice Department sent a subpoena for classified information and went to Mar-a-Lago last spring, they say that the former president’s staff did not give them all the documents.
Unclear When A decision Will be Made
FBI agents returned in August with a warrant indicating that they were investigating crimes such as deliberate retention of national security information and attempts to hinder the federal investigation. They say they found more than 300 of these papers in the building. They found documents marked “classified” in a storage room and an office desk drawer.
It’s unclear whether Trump or anyone else will face charges or when a decision will be made. The former president will face criminal charges in a separate investigation in Atlanta, where a special grand jury probing efforts to alter Georgia election results has completed its work.
The White House is also trying to tell the difference between the Mar-a-Lago case and the secret information found in Biden’s old institute’s Washington office.
Richard Sauber, the president’s lawyer, said on Nov. 2 that the president’s lawyers found “a small number of classified documents” from the Obama administration when they were putting files in a locked cabinet to leave the Penn Biden Center.
The statement stated that the White House contacted the Archives that day, that the Archives took possession of the materials the next morning, and that the Archives had not previously requested the records – a clear contrast to how the Trump administration handled Archives requests.
Even still, major concerns remain, such as the substance and exact amount of the Biden records, how they got to the center, why they stayed there, and why the administration took more than two months to disclose their finding. The Justice Department has remained silent as well.
The Biden news was a stroke of good fortune for the former president, who had earned the nickname “Teflon Don” during his long business career for frequently escaping repercussions, and who had for months falsely compared his treatment of presidential records to that of his predecessors.
More Political accusations for Trump
Politically, the accusations come at a good time for Trump, who just launched a new presidential campaign at the end of last year and is getting ready to speed up his campaigning. More and more people are looking into how he handled sensitive documents and how he tried to change the results of the 2020 election. The new developments could give political cover, particularly among casual audiences who are too busy to dive into the specifics of either claim.
“Certainly, it offers him something to talk about. “Not that requiring something to be factual has ever stopped him before,” Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist turned Trump critic who worked on Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign, said.
When looking into Espionage Act crimes, like the one the Justice Department did about Trump, the focus is often on whether or not the action was done on purpose or by accident.
That was going to be the case with the Trump investigation, but proving Trump’s willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt is likely to be especially important now if the Justice Department is to ensure public trust in any indictment it brings — and to demonstrate that the allegations amount to more than simple misplacement or mishandling of government secrets.
SOURCE – (AP)
