1. Yes. It is still a crime. I'm not denying or trying to change that. But when judging crime the justice department uses intent, cooperation, and how prolific the criminal was in their judgment. It is dishonest to try and ignore those factors in this case. 2. I have already said that there are problems with the classification system being abused. But as you said in point 1. It is still a crime. There was a procedure for declassication. Trump didn't do it. Nor did he seek to rectify his mistakes. He intentionally sought to deceive and mislead. Those should be factors. 3. The media having this story isn't because of a vendetta or prejudice against Trump. A. If Trump had given all of the material back, the media would never have known. That is true from the multiple times Trump was asked for the documents to be returned. B. If Trump hadn't publicized the raid of Mar-a-Lago himself, the media wouldn't have known. This wasn't leaked by the FBI, the DOJ, or mainstream media. The raid was leaked by Trump. C. We know a number of the documents were TS/SCI. Those are by definition not innocuous. Trump has a history of exposing U. S. and allied intelligence gathering assets. 4. Evidence shows Trump himself sought to enact a coup to reatain power. The publicizing of the Mar-a-Lago raid was initiated by Trump. It want publicized initially by any liberal, media, or deep state actors. 5. I agree with you about classifying the wrong documents. We get to find that out with the Freedom of Information Act. It doesn't mean that stealing, lying about, and hoarding classified documents isn't a crime that endangers national security. Trump did that.
seeing speculative reports this morning that hypothesize Biden kept the documents to work on his book
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bi...arland-11673392667?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s Biden’s Classified Document Stash A sauce for the gander moment that makes charging Trump much harder. By The Editorial Board Jan. 10, 2023 6:53 pm ET Whatever gods are scripting America’s political drama these days, they sure do have a sense of humor. On Monday CBS broke the news that, days before the midterm elections, “roughly 10” documents with classification markings were found among Joe Biden’s vice presidential files in a private office he once used. A federal prosecutor is investigating, and the FBI is involved. Not even George Santos could make up this plot twist. The documents discovered in Mr. Biden’s possession include “intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom,” CNN reports. Citing a single anonymous source, CNN says Mr. Biden “didn’t know the documents were there.” His personal lawyers found the classified material while packing files in a locked closet at an office that Mr. Biden used beginning in 2017. After the discovery, the National Archives was notified the same day, and the papers were handed over the following morning. Some of the documents were designated as “sensitive compartmented information,” which means they were classified above Top Secret. News analysts are cautioning that this apparent mishandling of material is different from Mr. Trump’s retention of hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home, which ultimately triggered an extraordinary FBI search last year. That’s true as far as it goes. Mr. Biden’s office had many fewer documents, and he wasn’t wrangling with the National Archives for months over his right to keep them. On the other hand, Mr. Biden as Vice President had no authority to declassify documents on his own, unlike the President. He also isn’t covered by the Presidential Records Act provision that gives former Presidents access to documents from their presidential years in cooperation with the National Archives. Mr. Biden had no authority to hold such classified documents at all in a private office. None of this is to say that Mr. Biden should be prosecuted, despite the Justice Department investigation. But it is a sauce for the gander political moment, and it certainly does bear on whether Justice can fairly prosecute Mr. Trump for similar mishandling. Mr. Biden was notably unforgiving about Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago files last year. “When you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at Mar-a-Lago, what did you think to yourself?” Mr. Biden was asked on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “How anyone could be that irresponsible,” Mr. Biden replied. “And I thought: What data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?” The same question applies to Mr. Biden’s documents. Special Counsel Jack Smith is investigating Mr. Trump’s handling of the Mar-a-Lago documents, which was at least reckless. But consider the political context in which Mr. Smith must now make a prosecutorial decision. Hillary Clinton’s private server exposed classified material, but the FBI absolved her in 2016. Now we learn Mr. Biden’s private office contained classified material that someone mishandled. Is Mr. Smith, who answers to Mr. Biden through Attorney General Merrick Garland, really going to indict Mr. Trump for mishandling documents while Mr. Biden is absolved? Legal nuances aside, the underlying offense is far too close for safe political comfort. Barring new evidence in the Mar-a-Lago case, half the country would conclude the sitting President is prosecuting his chief political competitor for an offense that he also committed. Mr. Garland did himself no political favors by failing to disclose this news as soon as he found out. The leak so many weeks later, with its made-to-order Biden explanations, sounds a little too tidy. All the more reason to settle the Mar-a-Lago case short of prosecution, and let Mr. Trump’s political future be decided by the voters. Appeared in the January 11, 2023, print edition as 'Biden’s Classified Document Stash'.
If the law should be changed is a different matter than whether someone broke the law. Yes there can be a discussion that too much is classified that doesn't change that there are laws on the books currently regarding improper holding of classified documents. In both Trump and Biden's case if they held classified material improperty there definitely should be an investigatioin and if it was done maliciously or negligently that should be grounds for charges.
Are you new here? If the Rs can investigate Benghazi for 4 years, this "scandal" will have longer legs. For the next two years we will be hearing that Biden should be impeached or hung for treason wrt handling classified documents ... while Trumps's 10x worse behavior is a witch hunt. FWIW Trump would likely not be under investigation if he had promptly turned over all of the classified documents upon discovery. But Trump is an idiot. Show of hands. Who here believe that Trump no longer has in his possession classified documents? Think of all of those empty classified document folders. I would not be surprised if Special Counsel Jack Smith has not offered Trump the deal that if Trump turns over the remaining classified documents and satisfactorily explains the empty classified folders that Smith will let Trump with a "sternly written letter".
Seems to be a bit of a red herring. I have no problem believing we have problems with the classification system that incentivizes over-classification. But Trump took things that were top secret, not merely classified, and fought like hell to keep from giving them back. I have a very hard time believing these top secret documents are merely over-classified, and over-classification doesn't justify resisting the return of the documents. So why talk about the incentives to over-classify in the first place. Maybe government should fix that problem, but it's got nothing to do with what Trump or Biden did. What's the problem?
Okay, I'll agree our document classification system probably needs an overhaul with an emphasis on more transparency. Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming, Biden has been doing a better-than-expected job and I'll vote for him again.
Truth: People don’t care half as much about classified docs as they act like they do on both sides. I really could care less if Trump wants to keep copies of his Kim Jung love letters if that’s the case. The issue with Trump is the plain as day obstruction and acting above the law. His acting above the law in this case also raises huge questions about what the hell he was doing with nuclear documents especially given his history working against US interest in benefit of his own political or personal gain. DOJ should have task oriented prosecutors examine both cases but since Trump has obstructed justice already it does warrant a higher level of prosecution and likely does need to be addressed with at least an indictment or fine that imposes some level of recourse. And yeah… I’m still going to vote for Biden over Trump in 2024.
I'm probably an outlier, but I literally withheld my vote from Clinton because of her abuse of the government document system and circumvention of FOIA. But I agree with your larger point that both current cases should be pursued, with a more aggressive posture towards Trump because it is a much more severe case.
I mean that people really could care less about most if not all of these documents being in their possession IF they knew what the documents actually said. With most of these documents I would imagine most Americans would be like "why the heck is that even classified." That over classification is probably what leads to officials like Clinton, and basically all of Trump's staff like Kushner, etc. using private devices/servers, and thumbing their nose at the procedures so they could work faster without the red tape. The only reason people care most of the time is because it's technically potentially a procedural crime so they think there is a potential political weakness to exploit. No offense but if you decided to by and large give your vote to Trump by way of protesting Clinton because of her carelessness of the classification system, I think that's retrospectively a bad decision. Should Hillary have been the nominee...probably not. Should anyone who cares about Democracy and have a stabilized government have chose Trump over Hillary... heck no. Unfortunately there were only two choices, and it's obvious to me she was the right choice.... Hence the January 6th riot, and attempt at a coup in the end to seal the deal on that debate. Maybe because you (assumingly) live in Texas a 3rd party protest vote doesn't matter here I guess (maybe it will in the near future), but I would have hoped that someone with your intellect, if you lived in a swing state, wouldn't have protest voted which in some states was actually a vote for Trump.
Biden is going to pull off a Regan. People underestimate how much old Americans love old people. Medicare beneficiaries are seeing lower premiums this year for first time in decades, having insulin capped, seeing largest ssi increase, and having their drugs capped at 2k a year will drive bidens numbers even higher.
I don't think the use of private devices/servers is to avoid red tape and work faster. I think the point of it is to avoid FOIA and be able to conduct business without public scrutiny. I'm sure their primary fear is that some honest work they do will be misconstrued by a political opportunist to make an unfair narrative about them. However, the widespread flouting of the law unfortunately creates an environment in which corruption can take root and grow. There'd be no way to differentiate between politicians just taking shortcuts and politicians taking bribes. In my view, our low levels of government corruption relative to that found in many other countries is a key differentiator that contributes to the US' global success. So I don't think these little cutesy workarounds are just procedural crimes I hope to exploit for some rhetorical win. I think it's serious business and would have liked to have seen prosecutions of Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, and all those other people conducting government business on a secret gmail account. To your point about Clinton, yeah I was hoping she'd win despite my non-vote, but also knew my vote would have been swallowed up by Electoral College rules in Texas anyway. And I didn't give it to Trump, but to a third party candidate whose name I no longer remember. So it was kind of a "free" protest. But I'd have done the same in a swing state. Your principles don't mean much when you start making compromises the moment you see it might cost you something. And of course Trump has been 100 times worse on transparency than Clinton could ever hope to be, and is probably literally corrupt as well. But I'm not in the business of picking the lesser of two evils. You might not like that point of view, but that's why you have your own vote to decide what to do with. But, on topic, Biden's doing a great job and I plan to vote for him again (unless he's conducting business with a private gmail account).
To me there is a huge difference in Biden having classified documents and Trump having them. Here is why. Biden had a few. No one requested them back. No one said a word to him or his team about them. The National Archives didn't reach out and request them. Biden's team found them locked away, and self reported and turned them over. They could have shredded them and no one would be any the wiser. Trump: The National Archives told him he had classified documents and he needed to give them back. He wouldn't. They got a subpoena. He turned over some. Said he turned them all over. They told him he hadn't. He turns over some more. They told him he still had more. He said he didn't. They got a search warrant and found even more. I wouldn't give a damn if Trump had taken them and once notified said "Ooops my bad" and returned them all. He didn't do that. He lied and obstructed and the stuff wasn't even locked up. He had the highest level documents just lying around. If one cannot see the difference they are stupid, willingly obtuse, or a schill for their orange God.
