How classified documents cases involving Biden and Trump differ?
The revelation that aides to Joe Biden discovered a handful of classified documents as they were moving boxes out of the president’s Washington-based think tank offices has the potential to be a political headache.
It could also place him in legal jeopardy, although too little information is known about the documents – which dated to his time as vice president before 2017 and why they were not stored securely at the US National Archives to draw conclusions yet.
A Chicago-based US government attorney, John Lausch, is currently investigating the matter and has already provided a preliminary report to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Details of that report have yet to be made available.
All this hasn’t stopped Mr Biden’s critics from quickly drawing comparisons between this disclosure, first reported by CBS News, and the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified material following his departure from the White House in January 2021.
Although there is still much to learn about the circumstances surrounding the Biden documents, there are some key differences between the two cases. How classified documents cases involving Biden and Trump differ.
According to news reports, Mr. Biden’s personal lawyers found 10 classified documents – some marked Top Secret included in a box of other material in a storage closet at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. That contrasts with the more than 325 classified files – including some marked with Secret and Top Secret designations – discovered over the course of last year at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. How the Biden-Trump classified documents cases are different.
In a rapidly unfolding case, U.S. President Joe Biden’s counsel says he has found some additional classified documents at his house in Delaware. pic.twitter.com/mTV7Us70vU
— Tehran Times (@TehranTimes79) January 15, 2023
The distinction between Mr. Biden’s think tank office and Mr. Trump’s personal residence could be a notable one, even if it is not entirely surprising given the former president’s penchant for mixing business and personal affairs.
The documents discovered in Mr. Biden’s office were marked “sensitive compartmented information”, according to CNN, indicating the material could involve intelligence-gathering methods and sources. They reportedly included information about Ukraine, Iran, and the UK.
Of the 300 Trump documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, one set had a similar SCI designation.
According to Mr Biden’s special counsel, his personal lawyers discovered the classified documents as they were moving out of the Biden Center’s Washington offices on 2 November. The following day, they turned the material over to the National Archives.
In Mr Trump’s case, the National Archives initiated contact with Mr Trump’s office after determining that it did not have possession of some notable records from his presidential term – such as correspondence with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
The former president’s team conducted a review of his Mar-a-Lago storage facilities and provided the government with some material, including classified documents, but archivists did not believe the president’s team had been fully cooperative.
That set in motion the FBI inquiry that led to the August raid of the Mar-a-Lago estate and the discovery of more than 100 additional documents.
