Let's be clear: Biden and Trump's misdeeds on classified data have certain aspects in common; details are still unfolding in Biden's case tying back to his VP tenure: a few classified documents (about 10?) at a Biden office in early November, and more recently some in his Delaware home residence garage more recently, and another one was found in his residence. A special counsel has been appointed to ascertain if Biden has mishandled classified information.
There are some unanswered questions: what motivated Biden's lawyers' sweep of Biden's think tank and home? Was it related to the Trump case and his claims that other predecessors did the same?
This has been a lifeline to Trumpkins and FNC who have been challenged to respond to the revelations of Trump's own mishandling of classified documents. The Biden revelations have FNC anchors and analysts charging predictably of hypocrisy, never mind their trying to turn the tables on Biden, charging his multiple location spread is even "worse".
First of all, let us point out that both POTUS and VP are subject to the Presidential Records Act. While classified documents are important, the act is more comprehensive. Did Biden comply with other documents? How did classified documents travel outside security vaults at the White House (presumably)? Biden had no need to know past January 2017. And all (unreturned) documents should have been in the custody of NARA when he left the office.
The government has enforced security compliance for decades. There's a lot I can't discuss in a blog, but let me give a telling example. After I earned my math MA at UT/Austin, I got hired as a Navy Nuclear Power School instructor for teaching math (calculus, etc.) in training programs. Admiral Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Power program and relevant submarine fleet, personally interviewed all officer candidates, including trainers. He didn't hire contractors for trainer roles, because he wanted line authority over personnel. Instructor qualification included prerequisite training, including topics like reactor principles, which we had to master on our own, with higher score cutoffs than trainees. I think most of the material was published in the open scientific/technical literature, but the Navy had us annotate material markings on our notes and we weren't allowed to take our notes home to study. We and our belongings were inspected for compliance when we left our building for home. Any DoD employee or contractor has to routinely retrain cyber awareness and if they are cleared (for classified access based on need to know) on classified data handling, derivative materials, etc.) there are tedious procedures even on routine IT maintenance. like patching and disk replacement. You can't take a cellphone into a SCIF (e.g., for potential leakage via camera functionality, etc.) You may need to be escorted for work on servers. And if you don't follow the rules, you can not only be fired but subject to federal fines and imprisonment. This is why I have been particularly skeptical when others support pardoning Snowden.
So, for those of us familiar with the rules, it's impossible to understand how documents which should have been secured after use end up at a residence or non-government office. Who packed the materials? You would think that a cleared person should have returned the marked documents in question, and uncleared people should not access them, period. Moreover, Biden has spent more than half his life in DC and should have known better. That being said, I'm not sure of the context behind why Biden's lawyers did a search: was it a tip like in the case of Trump of withholding documents sought by grand jury subpoena? But unlike Trump's lawyers, Biden's lawyers did their due diligence and escalated return of the documents in question.
But how do we compare Trump's and Biden's violations: The Guardian comments;
The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly sensitive government documents...Broadly, the Department of Justice has typically pursued prosecutions when cases have involved a combination of four factors: wilful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the United States and obstruction.
The Guardian suggests the quantities and obstruction criteria were clearly more flagrantly violated by Trump. We are talking 325 or so Trump classified documents (in 2 locations) vs. 11 or so for Biden, most of which were immediately returned when discovered upon closure of Biden's office in 2020. The context also differed; for example, Biden's documents were all clustered during Biden's VP tenure, while Trump's documents included a mix with post-Presidency documents.
Let's point out none of the places used by Trump or Biden for storage even if locked met SCIF-like security standards. I have concerns either man will do due diligence in enforcing national security standards. But let's not pretend the cases are morally equivalent. Trump was in a state of denial regarding who owned Presidential records, he only agreed to releasing 15 boxes last January after NARA threatened to escalate, and the USG had to issue a subpoena and do a search at MAL to retrieve the rest. That's textbook obstruction.
