...Biden said. “When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me, secure office in the capital when I, for four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn. They found some documents in a box, you know, a locked cabinet, or at least a closet...
...Biden said that when he was briefed about the lawyer’s discovery, he was “surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office.” “But I don’t know what’s in the documents,” Biden claimed.....
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798
...(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States...
My "armchair lawyer" thinking:
•Biden admits to knowingly allowing other persons besides himself to access/move docs.
•Biden admits to his office being used to facilitate misplaced classified docs.
•Biden admits that he had no knowledge of other persons moving docs to that location. That is a tacit admission that he did not (could not) know if the docs that left his possession were being moved/handled by authorized personnel, or not.
From my point of view, it seems clear that Biden is looking to throw one or more of his lawyers under the bus- or more likely one of their employees, for "accidentally" moving classified docs. My contention is that it was still Biden's legal responsibility to safeguard those documents, regardless of if he had legal authority (he didn't) to take those docs, or not.
Biden's public statement require legal action to be taken immediately, without need for determining (wasting time) whether or not he had any authority to possess the docs in the first place.
So in my armchair lawyer opinion, I say rush the play call, and run the ball straight up the middle, right now, and gain ground while the dems are still disoriented from Joe fumbling the ball. We need to know who had possession of those docs, besides Biden. This demands an investigation.
I'll throw a part 2 in here:
Let's count the lies!
So these documents WERE STILL CLASSIFIED when they were taken...which constitutes a felony (and explains why he has claimed no knowledge of them for plausible deniability defense)
Mike Davis does well with this one.
Every document, every time they were moved, and each place they were stored that was improperly suited to hold documents of that classification is a felony. So yeah, ALOT. I said yesterday this was the beginning of the end for them. Its nice to feel a little vindication!
Alright now compare to Trump:
It's not often I agree with Newt or Ingraham but he is starting to peel back what is REALLY underneath all this.
To your post:
Hmmm... no, I don't think so. The lawyers 'discovered them' because Biden already was aware of their existence and having his attorneys present and on-site at the time of "discovery" dissuades from any charges, since their contention will be they "immediately contacted blah blah and followed protocols" ASAP once they knew. That's why lawyers were moving boxes, to help him cover his (or someone else's) ass.
It's been suggested that this could involve Hunter somehow and it wouldn't surprise me; he was after all doing most of the legwork when it came to the influence peddling grift. Didn't it say somewhere in his laptop he was comfortable providing the Chinese with "anything, except military stuff" or something like that?
Oh, you're absolutely right but it won't stick. Hence hiring the lawyers to "find" the docs so they could immediately do what you're supposed to do if/when this happens. Hence leaking the story directly to MSM to assure a positive spin (only once House Republicans started their committees and this was going to be discovered ANYWAY) and give the American people a dog-and-pony show "investigation by a TRUMP APPOINTED D.A. OOH LA LA so we can claim there is no Two-Tier justice system.
Hence so we can cover my son's ass because he left this crap everywhere when he didn't SELL THEM to the CCP or another interest foreign gov. Hence so we can memory hole this problem quicker so that people forget when a whole bunch of worse shit surfaces soon from the numerous investigations. You get the idea.
He will be held responsible about as much as he has for anything else. Dude is pure teflon.... but not in the "cool" Gotti way. In the lame Sonny Gravano way.
Oh but don't you see? Legal action is already underway the DoJ is looking into this matter! Who else is there to charge him? Now of course you could ask why there is no Special Prosecutor especially since they got one sniffing Trump's ass right now and this thing will likely continue to widen and become EXTREMELY EXPLOSIVE I think, at which point Garland WILL FEEL THE HEAT and may appoint one under political pressures to do so.
Because this is going to move WAY past Biden and onto Renegade, Dana the lawyer, Susan Rice and MANY others. You may get a BIG home run and find a whole clandestine industry of these jerks that were selling our state secrets, on paper, to the highest bidder. As I mentioned before: who could have declassified them? How would they have gotten into Biden's hands in the first place?
It really is starting to feel like a new part in the script here... getting back to that 'watching a movie' period of time again. Predicting:
That's just my guess, and whew, this is getting long... I'm always the TLDR guy, for better or worse though! One last thing -that was mentioned by sane, rational folks during the Mar-a-Lago debacle a few months ago.
It DIDN'T have to be this way. The whole issue set of archives, documents, declassification powers was BROUGHT FORWARD BY THEM.
It's common knowledge they OVERUSE the Classified stamp in Washington. As the various 17 agencies have become increasingly arrogant and unaccountable, they started to label anything and everything as classified.
One effect of over classifying was it created more of these situations in recent years. Sometimes accidents DO happen - after all, we're talking about pieces of paper here. In a person's workday they will be walking around holding them, sticking into folders to read later and so on. Shit happens. I have a bad habit of folding and sticking into my pocket - would you make pocketing a lighter a felony? You get the idea. Things make it out sometimes. Benign things get labeled secret.
So there usually has been a kind of unwritten rule to not strictly enforce and punish. Once in a while they might look a little closer just to get situational awareness and make sure you aren't doing this all the time and there isnt something bad going on. So mostly it stands as more of a workplace policy - try not to do it, but if you mess up once or twice you'll get a reprimand, not handcuffs.
So they are actually telling the truth when they come out and say this type of thing happens and it's usually NO BIG DEAL provided you comply, contact the Nat'l Records etc. This explains what we are seeing with Biden, already in progress. They will treat him with the usual banality reserved for this issue. Because "you can trust him," which is the same implicit treatment that anyone in Washington would receive from DoJ when this comes up.
EXCEPT ORANGEMAN! No, for him they applied this impossibly strict and completely ludicrous standard. Everyone with legal expertise and experience in D.C. found the whole thing absolutely laughable! It was just another way to bust his balls, silly, but annoying. UNTIL THE RAID. Simply put they turned not a big deal into VERY BIG DEAL.
The result is this: A RAISED PROFILE. Garland came out himself and said it! They took the matter seriously. They changed expectations: not just for Trump but for everyone! If you were handling classified documents in your job while they happened, you got a lump in your throat and started organizing your desk again. DoJ was telling all of us to GET SERIOUS about this. They would not tolerate classified items being places they shouldn't belong, nor would they play games about compliance. When the Librarian speaks you better listen! Look what happened to Trump.
And now after all their puppets in the media droning on about grave seriousness, psyching themselves and us up.... Can't we just go back to how things were? That's the ask from them. They want to just admit fault, show something that vaguely matches Trump and let the wind blow it away like always. That's exactly why you're hearing "honest mistake" - it was always treated like that.
Biden's document kerfuffle has the distinction of being FAR WORSE than Trump's. With DJT they were clutching at straws and trying to mix up the normal rules with the Presidential ones. All that droning on about proper SCIFs, who had access, nuclear secrets!
Now its hey man chill out, it was just an accident.
That's why it will come out in committee. There won't be anything criminal. But it will be the BEST SHOW of the complete hypocrisy, rules for thee not for me, the have your cake and eat it too. One standard for Trump and one for everyone else. More than just Biden too - a LOT OF PEOPLE are going to smell like shit once this all gets out in public. I hope they take Garland's job for it.... and it could DEFINITELY happen, with how awfully they are trying to apply the law.
Sorry this got long. It deserves attention though and its a complex topic.