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Notes -
What do you do when caught with top secret documents? Deflect:
Of course, this time it’s Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. The President’s staff has handed over several documents, including TS//SCI, leftover from his time as VP. His personal attorneys found the documents on November 2nd while clearing out a closet in his former Penn Biden center office, immediately notified NARA, and handed off the hot potato the next day. Since then the DoJ has appointed an attorney to figure out who’s responsible for the illegally handled files. Other than that, most everyone involved has refused to comment unless they represent one of the parties in court.
Now for the obvious comparisons:
The type of documents seem similar to those kept in Mar-A-Lago, and were haphazardly filed in a similar manner
NARA didn’t know about (or request) the missing files
If Biden’s team is concealing more documents, they’re doing a much better job
The FBI is watching but not serving any warrants
Perhaps most importantly, the President is deflecting and denying rather than crying “witch hunt”
This leads, naturally, to two movies on one screen. Either the President is taking all the right actions after some staffer’s fuckup, or the security state is shamelessly giving him a slap on the wrist. What few outlets are writing on the subject fall into these two narratives. Democrats can’t help but compare the “scope and scale” of the violations, while Republicans emphasize the lack of door-kicking.
Neither stance addresses the real deciding factor of a smoking gun. This is going to be a Hillary situation. Like her infamous server, responsibility is diluted enough that no charges will be brought. (Note that I’ve made the same prediction about Mar-A-Lago.) Both narratives will try to spin epistemic uncertainty into iron-clad assurance, thus adding no value.
The only real conclusion is that you or I wouldn’t get off nearly so easily. If you’re going to store classified documents for your job, you’d better talk softly and hire a big staff.
Let me see if I understand correctly.
In Biden's case the staffers who discovered the documents immediately alerted NARA to their existence, turned the documents over, and are cooperating with the governments investigation into how the documents came to be there.
In Trump's case NARA learned Trump had documents bearing classification markings after some were included in boxes of presidential records Trump returned to NARA. NARA told Trump they were going to inform the FBI of the classified docs. Trump asks NARA not to tell the FBI, but produces no further documents. Eventually NARA informs the FBI. The FBI gets a subpoena for all documents at Mar-a-Lago bearing a certain set of classification markings. Trump turns over some documents and (falsely) certifies that those documents are all the ones in his possession that are covered by the subpoena. The FBI, by means not fully public yet, develop probable cause to believe Trump has further documents covered by the subpoena which he has not produced. A magistrate judge issues a warrant and the FBI execute that warrant. In the course of executing the warrant the FBI discover their probable cause was correct and Trump had lied about compliance with the subpoena.
Now, maybe some very damning facts will come out in the Biden case. It is a developing situation after all. But on the basis of the facts I know so far the differential response by law enforcement and related entities seem totally explicable.
More or less.
On the merits, the Biden closet is strictly less dramatic than Mar-A-Lago. Partisan defenses have to rely on the perception of unfair treatment. The baseline, as advertised by Trump on his platform, is “why no raid?” This isn’t very reasonable, but it does align with his narrative.
A slightly more defensible complaint is “right before midterms!” I think this, too, is selective, since IIRC nothing about the Trump situation was public knowledge until the raid. Expecting the DoJ to intentionally broadcast this event is implausible, and relies on the preconception that the FBI raid was a political maneuver first and foremost.
The media coverage, or lack thereof, reflects that this is a less exciting issue...but is also fodder for the usual array of bias complaints. I expect posters in a couple month to be treating this like the Hunter laptop, asserting that the story was “buried.” It is possible that, like with the NY Post, someone did suppress an attempt to break this story, but I think the facts of the case are sufficient to explain low response.
If in a couple months posters are not talking about this story, but are still talking about Hunter's laptop, will that be the best possible outcome in your view?
You're claiming that partisans latch onto any incident and spin it for maximum political effect, regardless of the realities. This is largely true, I think. On the other hand, some incidents actually do matter, and are a big deal, and partisans can run it the other way and use nothingburgers as justification for ignoring matters of import, can't they?
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