12 January 2023 — 1215 mst

Joe Biden hands the GOP’s Gotcha! squad a sword

By James Conner

The Republican Party’s partisan Gotcha! squad is dancing a jig of joy beause Joe Biden found classified documents in his old Pennsylvania office.

Upon finding the documents, Biden’s staff notified the National Archives, which picked up the documents the next morning. Then the fickle finger of fate struck: a second set of classified documents was found, this time in his garage in Wilmington, Delaware. Again, the documents were collected by the Archives.

Was national security compromised? Probably not, although we won’t know for months. Was there an attempt to conceal the discovery or hold onto the document? No.

How did the classified documents escape transfer to the Archives after Biden finished his second term as Vice President? We don’t know — and may never know — but I suspect the documents had been misfiled long before Biden began packing.

This morning, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, a special counsel will investigate the situation. That announcement no doubt sent the Gotcha! squad into a state of shinning eyed ecstasy, and Biden’s camp into purple faced exasperation.

The key question for the special counsel is: did Biden’s improper possession of classified documents compromise national security? And if so, to what extent with what consequences? The improper storage of classified documents may present an opportunity for a breach of national security, but the existence of an opportunity is not itself proof that national security was compromised.

Biden’s situation profoundly differs from Trump’s. The key difference — and it’s a big one — is conduct following the discovery of the documents. Biden immediately called the Archives, initiating a swift, smooth transfer of the documents.

Trump did the opposite. He tried stiffarming the government when asked to return the classified documents in his possession, forcing the authorities to obtain a search warrant and raid Mar-A-Lago. As usual, he sued, initially getting a favorable ruling from a kiss-up district judge he appointed. The circuit court, however, kneecapped the judge, ordering her to dismiss the case.

Had Trump handed to the Archives his stash of classified documents, his sycophants would not now be playing partisan Gotcha!, trying to defend him by asserting a false equivalence between his behavior and Biden’s.

This is a parking ticket level embarrassment to Joe Biden, and the Republicans are not going to let go of it. They’re out to take down Biden any way they can. By asserting a false equivalency with Trump’s classified documents predicament they are, of course, lying shamelessly and subordinating civic responsibility to perceived political advantage. At some point, they will try to make “Biden” interchangeable with “Benghazi.” And they will continue doing so even after the special counsel issues a report exonerating Biden while dinging him for not being more careful with classified documents.

As Americans assess the situation, they should remember that fundamentally, Joe Biden is an honest, decent man, a patriot, and that Donald Trump is a sociopathic grifter, a pathological liar, a man who, when he lost the 2020 election, tried to execute a coup d’etat to reclaim what the voters denied him. Donald Trump, who cannot believably assert “I am not a crook,” cannot be trusted with any classified documents.

Will this be a major issue in 2024 if Biden runs for re-election? Probably not, given the facts we now know.