Why Didn’t Biden Just Burn Those Classified Documents?

January 13, 2023

On Monday CBS launched a story about classified papers found in a former office of president Biden. I am curious why the story came out and why it came out now.

U.S. attorney reviewing documents marked classified from Joe Biden's vice presidency found at Biden think tank

Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review documents marked classified that were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told CBS News. The roughly 10 documents are from President Biden's vice-presidential office at the center, the sources said. CBS News has learned the FBI is also involved in the U.S. attorney's inquiry.

The material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, just before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden's personal attorneys "were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.," Sauber said in a statement to CBS News.

The story was kept under the wraps for more than two month. Biden's lawyers, who allegedly found the documents, informed the National Archive which took possession them the next day. It then informed the Attorney General who assigned a U.S. attorney and involved the FBI.

That is at least how the story is told.

But I am curious on how much back and forth there was between Biden's lawyers and the White House after the find. That the lawyers did not ask Biden or his handlers how to proceed with the documents before informing the National Archive can be excluded. The alleged find was easy to hide. The National Archive is said to not have known anything about the documents. The lawyers were bound by their attorney client privilege that would have prohibited them from talking about the issue.

By informing the National Archive, which then involved others, it was made inevitable that someone would let the media know about this.

So why weren't those documents just burned up? Why not avoid the scandal that has now been reinforced by a second find of such documents, this time in a garage at Biden's home in Wilmington? Who made these decisions?

Biden is not an honest man when it comes to political issues. He is not a stranger to covering things up.

The decision to let this out, to not cover it up, is so far unexplained. The whole thing can only hurt Biden. It also disables the Democrats of using Trump's withholding of classified papers as a weapon against him.

Was it the very special content of the classified documents that made this move necessary? Or is there something else that we do not yet know about? Something that led to the judgment that the current limit hangout of some dirty linen is better than to have a real scandal come to the public's knowledge.

The whole thing is puzzling.

Posted by b on January 13, 2023 at 14:34 UTC | Permalink

Comments

what’s up with the price of eggs in US? A US American colleague tells me a local grocer — I think called Stop & Shop — was charging $9 for a dozen eggs. Yikes.
I am sure in a week or two, those eggs will be going bad due to lack of sales — he said the shelf was full—, and will have to be marked down for sales, so, why mark up in the first place?
Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Jan 13 2023 20:21 utc | 85
So called “large eggs” (medium? small? 57 g eggs) were retailing for about 10c a piece in relatively recent past, but it went up to more than 30c late spring last year. I do not buy them every week, so I was surprised by your post. Stop & Shop is a supermarket chain in New Jersey, basically, metropolitan New York City, and prices there are higher. Today my local supermarket sells large eggs for 39c, i.e. $4.69 for a dozen. Quite a jump in two weeks. I noticed several other groceries going up — and I do not buy a wide variety, but the “logic” is a bit elusive. Last year, there was poultry epidemic, but the price of poultry meet did not go up dramatically, perhaps 10%. My type of milk stays the same for at least a year.
In eggs, one effect is that the price differential between “normal” and “ethical” (cage free) and “organic” became very small. Epidemic could explain that, farms with small flocks were perhaps not affected, and factory-style were perhaps decimated and forced to do some changes and investments. But that would increase chicken meat prices too…

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 13 2023 21:53 utc | 101

@ Piotr Berman
Not really. Caged laying hens are, once l
slaughtered, good only as stewing chickens. They’re too scrawny to sell as roasting hens.

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 13 2023 21:58 utc | 102

nice to see that the leaders of the free world aren’t themselves suckers for the organization of knowledge created by a SECRET stamp on some piece of paper. nor are their handlers and minions.
suckas!
as far as i’m concerned, trumpbiden should face the penalty they so readily impose on others and are so eager to expand:
death penalty as traitors.
not that there could ever possibly be something like “treason” to something non-existent, ie the nation-state, so execute them for hypocrisy. seriously. spare their families the misery of their decay.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Jan 13 2023 22:02 utc | 103

I don’t know what changed, maybe it’s his embarrassing senility or he’s being used to deflect attention, but I think this means Biden is going down.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jan 13 2023 22:04 utc | 104

Biden is a crooked politician. Corrupt as he’ll. The documents are a set up. He will now be the fall guy for the looming disaster in Ukraine. Prolonging the war is making the US grave deeper (and bigger). There is no way the US can win in Ukraine. This is Russia’s home turf. And they have a big friend with China.

Posted by: John | Jan 13 2023 22:20 utc | 105

malenkov. Yes, thanks.
Oh and those chickens will make chicken nuggets guarantee u dat.

Posted by: Tannenhouser | Jan 13 2023 22:25 utc | 106

I guess you don’t burn Kompromat. The limited hangout enables you to spin it as silly uncle Joe left his keys in the car. He’d have so much political insurance I guess some of it lies around in a garage. “Hey Honey, where’d you file those photos of that Epstein-Zelensky-Hunter three-way with the Pope?”

Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 13 2023 22:33 utc | 107

Alek @15
Second thought sounds about right. I presumed it was to get rid of Biden but maybe it keeps incriminating documents out of public hands.

Posted by: Inki | Jan 13 2023 22:35 utc | 108

Or, maybe they’re the reports from the hospital confirming dementia.
“Dear President Alzheimer,
It is our strong view that overall command of the US military and control of the nuclear arsenal NOT be place in the hands of a senile baby boomer”
I mean if we can’t have fun with this then 2023 is gonna be really depressing.

Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 13 2023 22:39 utc | 109

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 13 2023 21:49 utc | 99
Which isn’t to say I don’t see the other side of the coin; that being the dilution of the labor pool and resultant suppression of wages, including through preventing unionization among legal and illegal immigrants. I don’t buy the supposed evils of multi-culturalism. The Southern United States was mostly once part of Mexico and many Mexican American families in Texas have been here longer than white people. Not to mention the Natives. Point being, this part of the continent has always been multi-cultural, at least through all of modern history. It’s the hate merchants and otherwise mis/un-informed people who push the messages of division and supremacy of one “race” or “culture” over another. But back to my first sentence, I also acknowledge that – let’s face it – most of the jobs worked by illegal/legal immigrants are jobs that ‘temporarily embarrassed (white) millionaires’ wouldn’t work regardless of the immigration situation.
As far as the somewhat unprecedented numbers of people arriving at our southern border at the moment, Uncle Scam reaps what he sows and he’s been sowing trouble in Latin America since before the invocation of the Monroe Doctrine. I just hope that they are treated humanely, which unfortunately is hoping for quite a lot.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 13 2023 22:41 utc | 110

Regarding the general theme of these Biden revelations and their timing, I can see the ‘kompramat’ angle, I guess, but I don’t think it has to do with Ukraine policy. Rather, it’s the security state’s message to him that it’s time to retire and not seek another term. And, as usual, the story (and that of Trump) is likely being pushed to the masses to distract from some other routine evil like the utter spinelessness (or greed) of allegedly progressive Democrats in Congress who I can guarantee will not learn any lessons from the McCarthy speaker debacle.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 13 2023 22:46 utc | 111

@ Piotr Berman
Not really. Caged laying hens are, once l
slaughtered, good only as stewing chickens. They’re too scrawny to sell as roasting hens.
Posted by: malenkov | Jan 13 2023 21:58 utc | 101
I meant that poultry epidemic would affect huge densely packed flocks, and could spare small flocks with different distribution chains, and this would apply to both caged “layers” or densely packed “broilers”. “Retired” layers can be utilized for “meat products”, chicken sausages etc.

Posted by: Piotr | Jan 13 2023 22:53 utc | 112

One view is that carelessness with no intent is not a crime, as supported by past prosecutions.
from the files —

First, a brief synopsis of the FBI’s findings as Comey described them: A hundred and thirteen of the more than 30,000 e-mails on Clinton’s servers contained information that intelligence agencies had classified, in some cases at the highest level (“Top Secret”), at the time the e-mails were sent or received. That means officials within those agencies had determined that the information should be protected. Although marking classified information is an important part of ensuring its protection, only a small number of the 113 e-mails were marked as classified. Nonetheless, as Comey put it, “participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”
The FBI concluded that Clinton and her colleagues were “extremely careless,” but found insufficient evidence to support criminal charges under statutes that require evidence of intentional misconduct or gross negligence. Comey suggested that prosecuting Clinton would break with past practice, as prior prosecutions all have involved clearly intentional mishandling, the exposure of vast quantities of classified information, indications of disloyalty to the United States, or efforts to obstruct justice.

And there’s one point that I introduced earlier–

This subjectivity, discretion, and skewed incentive structure combine to produce massive “overclassification,” a phenomenon noted by experts and blue-ribbon commissions for decades. Current and former government officials have estimated that 50 to 90 percent of classified documents could safely be released. . . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 13 2023 23:24 utc | 113

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1613695611022487553?cxt=HHwWgsDR6fjm_-QsAAAA

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 13 2023 23:26 utc | 114

Over on another site (putting whose name in this comment first time made it mysteriously disappear) Mike Whitney thinks this may be a blackmail bid to force Bidet to openly order combat troops into Ukranazistan (presumably by threatening larger “discoveries” otherwise) out be driven from office. I find this “logic” questionable since Bidet isn’t exactly in charge anyway, and he can be made to sign anything his puppet masters order him to sign.
It is possible that the plan is that Bidet has outlived his utility after the midterm selections and will now be forced to resign before he loses the next presidential selection, but in any case the same Deep State remains in charge no matter which con man adorns the White Louse, so even that is not something I find all that convincing.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jan 13 2023 23:27 utc | 115

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/0f/15/A2F4E7BC-3F34-4BE1-B0D5-274552C5D93A/IMG_1985.PNG
Just a screen shot. Biden think tank at Uni that hosts fact-check.org and gets paid for vax sales and fda approvals.

Posted by: Inki | Jan 13 2023 23:27 utc | 116

@ aristodemos | Jan 13 2023 19:14 utc | 75
lol… i mostly agree with you, although some in the police kicked back against all this… what do you call the usa these days? cheers..

Posted by: james | Jan 13 2023 23:33 utc | 117

@Testing #27
Can you prove that I didn’t poison you?

Posted by: fnord | Jan 13 2023 23:38 utc | 118

@TG #17
”…designed to distract us from important things like the third-world invasion of the United States.”
Apparently you’ve never heard of NAFTA/CAFTA or the adage that ”one reaps what one sows”.

Posted by: fnord | Jan 13 2023 23:45 utc | 119

Allow me as an attorney to explain their actions.
If a client comes to me and confesses a murder, that is covered by attorney-client privilege. I can’t tell anyone. I can defend him.
If a client comes to me and hands me the murder weapon, that is NOT covered by attorney-client privilege. He just made me an accessory after the fact to a murder. I’m in that moment guilty myself of committing that murder. I can’t defend him. I must immediately defend myself, to get myself out of a serious mess.
Possession of those documents was itself a crime. It was not only after the fact of Biden doing it, it was the attorneys in that moment committing the crime themselves.
For an attorney, this is a panic moment, a this-must-never-happen moment.
Biden’s attorneys did the only thing they could do to save themselves from being felons, at serious risk, see the Petraeus example of the general himself and his biographer/girlfriend committing the same crime.

Posted by: Mark Thomason | Jan 13 2023 23:49 utc | 120

Antoinetta III | Jan 13 2023 15:18 utc | 19:
Power hungry people do not voluntarily leave from positions of authority. They are forced out. I wonder if the Democrats are willing to just get rid of him using methods of plausible deniability. A bullet tends to leave no room for discussion.

Featherless | Jan 13 2023 17:00 utc | 46:
Not just the first female but a black female president.

Posted by: Ian2 | Jan 13 2023 23:56 utc | 121

President Trump legally kept declassified documents that were proof that for four years the FBI, CIA and US State Department conducted convert operations against a sitting President of the United States. The reasons should be obvious. President Trump was the first and only Uas President since Truman who didn’t initiate a war without a formal declaration of war from Congress. May I remind you that the first impeachment of President Trump was incited by an immigrant from Ukraine named Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman (aka the Pillsbury Dough boy). While the alleged quid pro quo was the alleged crime, it was truly a coup against President Trump for the unpardonable sin of being insufficiently eager to provide weapons to Ukraine. These declassified documents would have been useful for Trump to defend himself from prosecutorial persecution once he left office.
Then Vice President Biden allegedly illegally kept still classified documents that were proof that the Biden family were utilizing Ukraine as a money laundering, Automatic Teller Machine to funnel US financial assistance to Ukraine to Vice President Biden via Hunter Biden the drug addicted criminal. The fact that these documents were “discovered” rather than destroyed is no doubt evidence that Senile Sock Puppet Biden’s puppeteers don’t want him to run for reelection because no plausible level of voter fraud could enable him to steal the 2024 election.
The fact that this situation exists is why many very conservative and patriotic Americans such as myself are hoping that Russia will not only win the war in Ukraine but win the war soon and win the war big. America’s representative republic has been perverted into a democratic dictatorship that utilizes rampant voter fraud to keep a bunch of imbeciles in power. The fact that these imbeciles have incited and provoked a war in Ukraine that is at extreme risk of going nuclear (and Russia will NOT be the first to use nukes) is proof that these imbeciles should not be allowed to remain in power. It is the United States of America that is in need of regime change, not Russia.

Posted by: Elmer Fudd | Jan 14 2023 0:01 utc | 122

Being an accessory after the fact is punishable.
Not only Biden’s lawyers could have been convicted as accessories after the fact, but also could face disbarment.
So I think that the non-destruction of the classified documents had purely legal reasons.
@Mark Thomason | Jan 13 2023 23:49 utc | 119
I don’t see things the way you do.
First of all, one cannot be both the perpetrator of an offence and an accomplice or an accessory after the act to the same offence.
Secondly, the fact of coming across a secret document out of the blue does not constitute somebody as an offender, because there is no criminal intent.
If a client brings his wife’s corpse to my office, I can’t hide the corpse, but I can’t say that my client brought it either. An embarrassing situation, I admit.
But we agree Biden’s lawyers could neither destroy the documents nor return them to him, which is enough to explain what happened. Nothing realy puzzling IMHO.

Posted by: Leuk | Jan 14 2023 0:27 utc | 123

@ Tom_Q_Collins
D’accord. 100%.
@ Piotr Berman
True, but a chicken can be frozen — even the “fresh” ones — for months before sale. Can’t say that about eggs. The price of eggs is thus much more sensitive to day-to-day conditions.

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 14 2023 0:44 utc | 124

The 2024 Pick – Jeffries
“There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism,” he told the Atlantic in a summer 2021 interview, arguing that there are important differences between his version of progressivism and that of some more left-leaning Democrats.
Big PR boost with the McCarthy fiasco.

Posted by: daffyDuct | Jan 14 2023 0:49 utc | 125

My take on JBiddens take down be it’s time Ukraine is over. Need to get peace breaking out there soon. Time to pivot to Asia
TSMC plant will be finished in US early 2024.
The caretakers in US need to ramp up tensions China V Taiwan. Get China to take the bait so sanctions can be imposed. The TSMC plants in Taiwan will be destroyed. US is the sole provider of the 2nm production

Posted by: Craig | Jan 14 2023 0:50 utc | 126

This is a non-issue because as the standing President, he can legally handle any documents he wants to.
At best they could charge them with ‘mishandling classified material’ for anything he acquired prior to becoming President. But Presidents are shielded from criminal prosecution while in office. Any charges would have to wait until he is out of office.
The difference between Biden and Trump is that Trump ‘negotiated’ the return of documents after he left office.

Posted by: Christian Chuba | Jan 14 2023 1:07 utc | 127

Elmer Fudd cogitated:
“it was truly a coup against President Trump for the unpardonable sin of being insufficiently eager to provide weapons to Ukraine.”
Let me ask you a question Elmer:
If Trump being “insufficiently eager” was a sin why was providing no lethal weapons to Ukraine before Trump came along not an even worse sin?
Trump started the war in Ukraine by being the first to start feeding weapons to the nazis to back their ambition to kill Russians, but somehow that fact has been turned on its head.
The whole scenario of the Ukrainegate was a Cia/Trump plot to get the majority of Americans to support the US funding of nazis in Ukraine. Now we’re told by diverse morons like Mr Fudd and Adam Shiff that Trump was the only one reluctant to fuel the fighting in Ukraine.
Whether or not anyone believes that it was a planned operation one cannot rationally deny that the end result of that caper called Ukrainegate was the support of the majority of Americans backing the nazis militarily in Ukraine which is something the majority of Americans had previously not supported.
And only the dim witted can not see that was the only possible outcome.

Posted by: jinn | Jan 14 2023 1:17 utc | 128

It’s interesting that Trump had hundreds of TSSP (Top Secret Stuff Papers) and Biden had only a relative handful.
This suggests that Trump was interested in educating himself on a wide range of hidden stuff, whereas Biden was only interested in info which would allow him to keep tabs on his future kickbacks from the Military-Industrial Complex for services rendered.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 14 2023 1:17 utc | 129

IMO this storm in a teacup is merely a small move within the inner circle of Bidenites. Any ambitious dem operator knows that going ahead next election with biden is risky in the extreme, yet there will also be extreme ‘bidenites’ who by way of family or close business connection have a keen interest in biden staying prez. They believe the risk of biden losing is outweighed by the reality – no prez joe biden – no earner for them.
Consequently the secret papers kerfuffle is most likely a pre-emptive move by ambitious dems whose position is dependent upon the DNC rather than biden hisself to isolate & neutralize the staunch bidenites.
My guess about the documents found in his garage would be that they were hung on to by biden/bidenites because they contained evidence of others perfidy and could be used as a way to ‘lean on’ the recalcitrant should than become necessary some time in the future.
In other words just standard DC pol operating procedure; the sorta stuff dopey joe did in his sleep for decades but prolly can no longer manage.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 14 2023 1:22 utc | 130

Oh and those chickens will make chicken nuggets guarantee u dat.
Not the chickens that were killed due to avian flu
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/28/egg-factory-avian-flu-chickens-culled-workers-fired-iowa
“Workers spent nearly a month pulling the dead poultry from the cages and dumping them in carts before they were piled high in nearby fields and buried in huge pits. The killing over, about 250 people were summarily thrown out of work with just a few dozen skeleton staff remaining.”

Posted by: jinn | Jan 14 2023 1:37 utc | 131

Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 14 2023 1:22 utc | 129
Since the time Biden became unquestionable winner of the primaries due to all his opponent dropping out, I think that DNC is an integral part of Deep State. Still, they prefer to win the next election, and with Biden on the top of the ticket, it would take a miracle. In retrospect, Biden was most electable option in 2020 if your plans required President who would go along with serious worldwide chaos: neither Klobuchar nor Buttiegegg (sp?) had sufficiently pronounceable name, while O’Rourke could not be trusted to “go along”.
However, predictions are hard. Both major parties decided that rank demagoguery is the best political tool. Trump got his political spoors championing suspicions on Obama birth certificate, Dems produced Russiagate, and there is still a lot of mud to dig into.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 14 2023 1:56 utc | 132

Tucker C thinks it’s a ‘makeway’ for Michelle O.
It just occurred to me viz b’s query about ‘why now?’ that something has indeed changed of late, though jaded cynics might have chosen to overlook it, namely the kerfuffle that just concluded in the US House of Representatives one of the results of which involves the formation of several new investigative committees along with selection of key roles in those and pre-existing committees.
It may be that some feel that because of these changes that various unsavory details involving the Bidens will soon come out in ways that can no longer be spun into irrelevance, so rather than have that drag out for months this is a pre-emptive strike getting ahead of the nightmare providing the Bidens an easier out which will also obviate the need for any criminal prosecutions or impeachments. (Plus Biden Sr. always looked expendable from Day 1, frankly, given he was so obviously compromised – by the laptop and more – but they went ahead and installed him anyway.)
I know it is unlikely that anything substantive could come out of DC, especially the House, but so also were unlikely those 15 vote-calls for Speaker. Seemingly it was not just vapid theatre; some sort of battle took place – probably involving more than China policy as some here have stated.
Be that as it may, perhaps last week the Establishment learned that it hadn’t gotten their expected RINO-run House, which is why only a few days later has come this puzzling, though potentially significant, development.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 14 2023 1:57 utc | 133

Why not burn them? I’ll guess that either at least one credible person was talking about their existence, and/or a paper trail had come to light, one which proved that some documents had been removed by Biden and/or his people, but never returned.
In America we have the saying that it’s the cover-up that really does you in, our system is incredibly forgiving of transgressions, but cover-ups draw the kind of attention and scorn that get memorialized.
Look at Willy Brown in San Francisco. A married politico that brought both his girlfriend and wife to events, one on each arm. He was open about giving Kamala Harris highly lucrative jobs because he was “dating” her.
In Clear and Present Danger, Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan character advised the President to embrace his incipient scandal. “If they ask if you knew him, say you didn’t just know him, he was a friend. If they ask if he was a friend, say no, he was a good friend.” I paraphrased that a bit, quoting from memory.

Posted by: Babel-17 | Jan 14 2023 2:00 utc | 134

From a Spectator article:

Biden told reporters, “People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously.” But the listeners heard the omitted comma: “People know I take classified documents and material, seriously.”

Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 14 2023 2:09 utc | 135

What do the NeoCons want out of Biden? What isn’t he giving them already?
This looks like a ploy to pressure Biden into escalation in Ukraine. Provide longer range weapons. Maybe a nofly zone. Maybe directly enter the war with US troops….And soon! NATO’s Ukrainian Project is in danger of crumbling rapidly at this point.

Posted by: Haassaan | Jan 14 2023 2:15 utc | 136

@ Mark Thomason | Jan 13 2023 23:49 utc | 119
Possession of those documents was itself a crime.
18 U.S. Code § 1924 – Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material
Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both. . . .here
Let’s look at it–
1. “knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority”
comment: “knowingly” — Biden could have just done it carelessly, not with full awareness or consciousness; nor deliberately.
comment: Biden is “the authority” – there is none higher.
2. “with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location”
comment: Again, Biden could have just done it carelessly with no intent to retain such documents.
Without proven intent, Biden (also Hillary and Trump) are innocent of the crime.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 14 2023 2:28 utc | 137

@Don Bacon #156: « Biden is “the authority” – there is none higher. »
18 U.S. Code § 1924 says: « without authority ». At that time Joe Biden was the Vice President.
As much as I know, the Vice President of the US has no executive role unless the President assigns one to him. Nor does he have an executive role as President of the Senate.
So Biden would have had to obtain clearance from the administrations whose classified documents he held.

Posted by: Leuk | Jan 14 2023 3:14 utc | 138

@ Leuk | Jan 14 2023 3:14 utc | 137
The other factors — knowingly and intent — still apply

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 14 2023 3:35 utc | 139

The documents were improperly/illegally stored, and then some of them were later improperly/illegally moved.
We can pretend nobody ever noticed that the documents were marked as classified, some as Top Secret, even when first taken, or we can look at the people involved through a non-partisan lens, and using normal standards. Whoever first moved those files from where they were securely stored was legally obligated to do so only under strict guidelines, and with a paper trail.
If someone other than a person properly briefed on procedure, and with permission, was allowed into the room they were originally stored, then that was a crime. There’s a reason that Garland appointed someone special to look at this. The regulations are laid out in such a way that there can be no innocent explanation for how these classified documents were treated. Arguably someone was so impaired or incompetent as to be incapable of understanding their responsibility, but that would still warrant getting fired, losing ones clearance, and generating an investigation into how the person ever acquired and then kept their position.
The security state makes everyone with access to these documents to constantly sign off that they understand the regulations, and are up to date on any changes to them.
A lot of time and effort was spent to make what we’ve been reading about impossible to happen innocently. If criminality somehow wasn’t involved, then this incident has exposed an enormous, dangerous, flaw in our security procedures. Maybe Biden will want us to thank him?

Posted by: Babel-17 | Jan 14 2023 4:20 utc | 140

This is an organized TAKE-DOWN of Joe Biden.
VP Harris & Obama teaming up with Speaker Pelosi & Governor Newsom to take out Biden in 2023….
The Cali Cartel of Harris/Pelosi/Newsom attempting to take out Biden.
President Kamala Harris & VP Gavin Newsom here we come…
The Question is…
What side are the Clinton Crime Family on?!?!?
Could Hillary swing a deal with Joe Biden to take the VP slot in the 2024 Election????
Biden/Clinton vs. Trump or Harris/Newsom vs. Trump?!?!?!?

Posted by: Julian | Jan 14 2023 4:23 utc | 141

Once again cartoonists (now memebros) say it best.
Joe has to go.
https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1613924127802359814

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jan 14 2023 5:09 utc | 142

Haassaan | Jan 14 2023 2:15 utc | 135
>…”looks like a ploy to pressure Biden into escalation in Ukraine”.
IMHO the exact opposite.
Biden family and associates corruption is at the very nebula of the current Ukraine debacle.
The Nuland Pelosi John Kerry Biden sewer need to escalate and escalate and double down to prevent their corruption from being revealed.
The Ukraine war has failed to weaken Russia; the blowback across global commerce is is causing serious financial pain, and some can even see how the Ukraine miscalculation is strengthening China (the worst outcome possible as some view it).
Not everyone wants to sit idling while Mr 10% escalates to nuclear Armageddon.
Team Joe know what’s in the documents. He can go quietly by not running in ‘24.
Or. He will be shown to be the Godfather of Ukraine corruption and it will end badly for him.
Joe needs to tread very carefully… ironically, his public stumbles provide excellent cover… he could take a nasty tumble and be incapacitated or deceased….no need to ruin the upholstery on that corvette

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jan 14 2023 5:29 utc | 143

Two words. John Bolton.

Posted by: John Bolton | Jan 14 2023 5:54 utc | 144

Just another useless red herring. sigh
In other real news. Geriatric DJT. A bad loser at the best of times with an evil personality. Facing a bruising no-way-to-win $250 million air dollars plus back taxes and interest later this year.
For his flagship corporation. He is playing a three-card monte. Including a number of bottom-of-the-harbor companies to hide both the income and assets. Presenting two empty shell companies with zero assets to pay both the fine and back taxes plus interest due. New York State has applied for and seeking an additional order to prevent such red donkey scum from cheating sleazebag ways. The race is on……..
In the wings is yet another no-way-to-win back tax fest against the entire board of family members. Is about to fly. The red donkey defanged IRS will then do like wise after the NYS guns finish the heavy lifting.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Jan 14 2023 6:20 utc | 145

Leuk [137]
Nor does he have an executive role as President of the Senate.
You really should read the US Constitution Art 1 s1 and s3 to be clear what “Executive” means

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Jan 14 2023 6:56 utc | 146

Those bitching about healthcare in Canada STFU. My friend’s Mom was just released from hospital there; spent 27 days – heart related observation. Costs? filling the tank to visit her.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 13 2023 15:40 utc | 28
Not paying attention are you. Two people just died waiting for care in the emerg in N.S.
Sure it ain’t the horror show that’s in the states but it’s in deep shit and the sharks (Ford) are circling.
Cdn’s better wake the fuck up.

Posted by: Drinky Crow | Jan 14 2023 7:50 utc | 147

John Bolton.
Posted by: John Bolton | Jan 14 2023 5:54 utc | 143
Are you saying that as trump’s NSA Bolton knew classified docs were AWOL?
That he knew, who, were and why?
and is only now putting his knowledge in play?

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jan 14 2023 8:40 utc | 148

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vriXhgrDSiQ
Charming and smart ex Satanist Styxenhammer666 Tarl Warwick had the same thought I offered earlier, though am no ex Satanist, namely that since it’s time for Biden to go, why not take him out on the documents business so that they can also knock Trump out as well for the same reason. He thinks they might impeach him to effect this but I suspect that, if this thing has legs at all which it very well may not, he will simply resign, possibly along with a health crisis or some such. If impeachment happens, though, they might be able to kick Kackling Kamala out too on a related process charge (heaven forbid election theft or riot-enabling!) and then it will be Wild West: the first President entirely appointed by the system without any electoral input whatsoever!
Styx thinks they will put in an Establishment Dem, though I think they’ll put in a Uniparty friendly R (like deSantis, who is both likeable and capable as well as being obedient in that he would never threaten to up-end Intelligence, MIC etc.). But anyway: the thought here is that this is not only a hit against Biden, but a potential knock-out punch against Trump.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jan 14 2023 8:43 utc | 149

Biden is never stupid as people make him out to be. Maybe by doing this they are trying to humanize Trump (to err is human) and bring him back so that he ends up hurting DeSantis. It is very difficult to predict Biden’s reasons because whatever he does is meant to produce results several months or years later. The guy plays 4D chess.

Posted by: Armo | Jan 14 2023 9:47 utc | 150

Armo | Jan 14 2023 9:47 utc | 149
Biden is smart in the way a rodent is smart.
Here’s Obama:
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”
Obama would know.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jan 14 2023 10:19 utc | 151

Classified at sufficiently high level documents are tracked for who has possession. That tracking register will have raised a flag when that document isn’t returned. The tracking authority will have to request return of such classified document when the person who has such document in possession leaves office, has his clearance down graded or revoked.
So for such highly classified documents the situation like with Biden should not even have been possible if the documents involved are indeed of such high classification. The other explanation would be a very sloppy control over highly classified documents. The Clinton email scandal is another example.

Posted by: JR | Jan 14 2023 10:47 utc | 152

“The whole thing is puzzling.” (b.)
Not if you believe in ‘squirrels’ theory ….
It’s all a script@work with multiple possible scenarious and useful inflection points ready for mass distraction.
Russia is about (it seems) to pound the Ukraine once again in a massive winter exercise of real Russian military power. The Nato/West need a narrative to explain the impending fiasco to their freezing bedazzled publics. Role out the man of the moment, old Joe B., while UK’s Boris B. scuttles around in the back-alleys of Kiev looking for some nose powders and a chat with the Actor ‘Z’ about a plan to rule Nato after September.
Joe (egg) B., has been politically dead since ‘winning’ the US 2022 mid-terms and so a few ‘top secret’ files discovered in a locked garage is offered to the mass media to chew on during a difficult few weeks/months of inconvenient field facts– but not before setting up a carefully scripted plan to frame Trump as equally guilty etc. Queen for queen if necessary.
Which brings to mind the relative seriousness of such matters compared to the Queen of them all; Hillary Clinton and her domestic network of computer servers etc. And don’t forget young Hunter B., and his “Mr 10%” Big Guy. If Joe B., is on his way out the door under a Republican House, then he may as well serve for one more useful sketch before setting off into the sunset in his de-classified Corvette.

Posted by: imo | Jan 14 2023 12:27 utc | 153

…………..answer is here pls: link…….

Posted by: ACCUstudies | Jan 14 2023 14:10 utc | 154

[Regarding emails on Hillary Clinton’s email servers]
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 13 2023 23:24 utc | 113

From the December 2019 revision (Sorry, I didn’t save the link.) of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General report regarding the Clinton email servers, it seems clear that HRC was spared prison orange only because the rationale that DOJ attorneys used to not prosecute her was so tortuous as to have made a defense attorney blush.
And despite being conducted on Trump’s watch, the OIG report if anything seems slightly tilted in HRC’s favor. For example, the report presents the above-mentioned rationale for failing to prosecute but doesn’t criticize it, even though the authors do criticize DOJ decisions that seem to me minor in comparison.

Posted by: David Levin | Jan 14 2023 16:09 utc | 155

Thanks, b. I too am puzzled by the brouhaha over Biden’s classified documents. It seems like a nothingburger, and why would the mainstream media be so eager and compliant in all jumping on the bandwagon to make it a headline item? After reading your post and the other comments, I began to wonder whether there might be a power struggle going on between the neoconservatives in the State Department (Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, et al.) and President Biden. Biden has stated many times that he wants to avoid World War III and therefore wants to avoid direct confrontation with Russia. While the neoconservatives seem to advocate unlimited export of weapons and armament to Ukraine, and reject the notion that escalation by the US is dangerous. The recent op-ed in the Washington Post by Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/07/condoleezza-rice-robert-gates-ukraine-repel-russia/) got me thinking that the neoconservatives would have plenty of motive to embarrass Biden now with the “discovery” of these classified documents, and they would have the means and opportunity for it if some forward-thinking accomplice had salted them into his files before he left the Vice-Presidency. Otherwise, maybe some other faction with a gripe against Biden’s direction of movement, in Ukraine or domestically or elsewhere. I’m beginning to think that the neoconservative faction believe that the US could prevail in a nuclear war against Russia.

Posted by: Clever Dog | Jan 14 2023 16:50 utc | 156

Washington political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.

Posted by: Casca | Jan 14 2023 16:52 utc | 157

Any new vice president must be confirmed by majorities in both Houses of Congress. Meaning that the Republican House would have veto power over any replacement of Harris. I think that rules Hillary out.
There’s a complication over any suggestion of a Harris/Newsome ticket. They’re both from California. One of the two would presumably have to move to another state.

Posted by: Lysias | Jan 14 2023 17:00 utc | 158

This might be an indication that the Democrat donors do not want Biden running in 2024. It is now clear, barely 2 yrs into his term, he is a bit beyond mere onset dementia.

Posted by: Mary Anne | Jan 14 2023 19:20 utc | 159

Curious how top secret documents are maintained. Presumably there is a digital copy, and circulating printed copies are limited by the system, and granted only to those w proper security clearances.
Would printed copies also be accounted for, such that one could not burn them? Otherwise, they are just floating around and it would be too difficult for the Intel Service to destroy compromising data on touchy subjects such as JFK assassination etc.

Posted by: glider | Jan 14 2023 20:51 utc | 160

This just goes on and on. Five more classified pages were found in Biden’s Wilmington house.

Posted by: Lysias | Jan 14 2023 20:57 utc | 161

Question: Why didn’t Joe just run these docs through the CLASSIFIED SHREDDER? ALMOST ALL high security offices have one RIGHT NEXT TO THE BLOODY SECRETARY.
And where is Joe’s SECURITY MANAGER?. You know, the guy who oversees document control, door security, network security, etc?
This entire thing is a stinking pile of baloney.

Posted by: Tarrasik | Jan 14 2023 23:44 utc | 162

This entire thing is a stinking pile of baloney.
Oh come on…
Stop with all the heavy dose of reality. Nobody wants to hear that shit.

Posted by: jinn | Jan 15 2023 0:44 utc | 163

Why now? Here is an idea – the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
If Biden resigns before noon this Friday (Jan 20th), Harris could serve as President for a maximum of 6 years; if he resigns after noon this Friday, she could serve for 10 years (theoretically, if she could win the two subsequent elections). That’s a major moment of discontinuity in the system. It’s not a unique discontinuity – this is true at the half-way point of every President’s first term – but now the stakes are possibly higher than usual. You all may think that Harris is a lightweight, but she is an important enough chess piece to a powerful faction within the Democratic party to be sitting where she is in the first place. And if John Fetterman can win an election, so can Harris. There may be a group of Democrats who are more powerful than Harris’ backers. We will find out if that’s true by whether she becomes President before or after noon this Friday.

Posted by: SteveA | Jan 15 2023 10:58 utc | 164

Well, the whole thing is puzzling. But perhaps not that much.
This story is being made to surface, or entirely made-up (the documents may have been put there from somewhere else, and behind Biden’s back. They must not truly have been “forgotten” where they are said to have been found), to pressure/keep Biden on his toes.
That’s the likeliest case.

Posted by: klklklklklklk | Jan 15 2023 14:32 utc | 165

it might also be a “Abacha – Abiola solution” in order to keep Biden and Trump away from the next campaign…

Posted by: Uwe | Jan 16 2023 21:46 utc | 166

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