Biden and the classified documents: the case for the US president is really that the Vatican is seriously investigating the disappearance of girls – after 40 years

The White House is cooperating. That actually says the most important thing, which also distinguishes US President Joe Biden from his predecessor Donald Trump in this case. But it’s inconvenient:

Confidential government documents from Biden’s time as Vice President under Barack Obama were recently found in a closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. He had used the Washington office of the think tank founded in 2018 until he became involved in the 2019 election campaign. The documents were long overdue for being turned over to the National Archives. After all, as far as the details are known, they were half locked up.

Now everything is going according to plan, the papers are already where they belong; a federal prosecutor should investigate the case. The question is whether this will have legal consequences for Biden. Under other circumstances there probably wouldn’t be much more to say about it.

But the parallels with Trump take the matter to another level. As is well known, investigations against the ex-president are still ongoing, including in a very similar case, albeit of a much larger scale: the scandal surrounding often classified government documents that he hoarded after his term of office and only reluctantly returned parts, would could even end could lead to charges under the Espionage Act and a possible prison sentence of several years.

intentional or not?

Unlike Biden, however, the material had to be taken out of his hands against much resistance – from a dispute with the National Archives, to the denial that there was anything else that didn’t belong to him, to the raid on his Mar-a-Lago. in Florida. And the content of what Trump had lying there, apparently deliberately keeping to himself, is somewhat explosive: hundreds of pages of the strictest levels of classification, some of the most sensitive secrets in the US barely protected, as has been reported — a huge security risk.

That may be different in the case of Biden. It is said that there are only about ten documents that are classified. According to CNN, the documents should include intelligence information about Ukraine, Iran and Britain. However, it is still unclear how sensitive the information actually is.

What is clear is that the papers were unsolicited and voluntarily handed over to authorities after they were discovered – while the most serious allegations against Trump may also relate mainly to his concealment and obstruction. From a purely legal point of view, things should actually end slightly for Biden, even though the detectives will certainly take a very close look because of the Trump scandal. Because that would require intent, which Biden would certainly be harder to prove than Trump. Moreover, Biden is still president, with all due rights.

So the greater damage is certainly political. Not just because Trump is already enjoying the supposedly minor misstep, “When will the FBI raid Joe Biden’s many apartments, maybe even the White House?” – and likes to use the new material for his old story about the unjust witch hunt against him, when his opponents are actually the worst criminals themselves.

Questions that deserve an answer

Biden’s own omission could also affect the legal handling of Trump’s case. The Justice Department will probably have a hard time deciding whether the ex-president should actually be charged or not. Precisely because he is so adept at selling investigations against him as solely politically motivated – and his supporters are believed to have some potential for violence, see the storming of the Capitol in January 2021.

In any case, the impression should be avoided that double standards are being applied here and that the government is keeping the case small: Attorney General Merrick Garland allegedly entrusted John R. Lausch Jr., a federal prosecutor in Chicago, with the further investigation, who was employed by Trump at the time. A special prosecutor could also be hired, similar to Trump.

Certainly, whether they remain staunch Trump fanatics or simply have their own best interests at heart, Republicans will gratefully embrace this new bill. With the new majority in the House of Representatives, it is already clear how much the party wants to make it difficult for Biden to govern by all means in parliament, not to say: it wants to plunge the entire democratic process into chaos. They mainly want to drive the Democrats ahead of them with often nonsensical investigations. That’s where the issue with the documents comes in handy: there really are a few questions that need to be answered.

For example, why the ugly case has only now become known. Finally should Biden’s personal attorneys came across the documents on Nov. 2when they cleared that office in Washington for a new destination – just before the midterm elections.

Authorities were immediately notified and the National Archives received the material the next day. But in retrospect, the secrecy about the matter only counts for the conspiracy stories of the political opponent, precisely because that might have been very useful before the election. Whatever happens next, Biden has gotten himself into unnecessary trouble — as if he hasn’t had enough already.

This article was first published on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Here’s the original.