Biden’s Document Scandal: It’s the Cover-up, Not the Crime

How ironic that President Biden is now caught in a scandal over the handling of classified documents.

When we first learned of a batch of classified documents found at the Biden think tank in Washington, DC, it could’ve been dismissed as a one-off. After all, the documents were related to Biden’s time as Vice President. Maybe they were misplaced or not properly categorized but at least they weren’t just laying around in someone’s garage.

However, as more revelations spill out, we’re learning of a second and now third batch of documents being kept at Biden’s Delaware home, tucked neatly behind his Corvette in the…. garage.

So far, the timeline indicates that even though the White House finally admitted that the first batch of documents was under investigation, it was also aware of the second batch and failed to disclose the breadth of Biden’s document drama.

As CNN explains, the timeline is such that the Biden administration chose to omit and conceal that information rather than offer transparency to the public:

But then the botched messaging strategy became more clear – when Americans learned that a second batch of classified material, also dating to Biden’s time as vice president, had been found in a search of his home in Delaware. This detail was communicated to the Justice Department on December 20. And yet the White House didn’t disclose that this week when it spoke about the initial documents found last year in an office Biden previously used at the Penn-Biden center in Washington. This made it look like it was willing to come clean to the DOJ but not the public.

Not only did this make it look like Biden had something to hide, it set up the kind of drip, drip of disclosures guaranteed to supercharge a Washington scandal. And Biden’s bid Thursday to minimize the discovery of secret material in his garage – by saying it was locked to protect his beloved Corvette – didn’t exactly back up his earlier claim that Americans know he takes classified documents seriously.

No kidding. Having Biden explain that the classified information, the contents of which remain unknown, was locked up nicely along with his corvette doesn’t inspire confidence. In fact, Biden has done nothing but make the situation worse. It’s this unwillingness to be forthcoming and the possible double standard of the situation, relating to former President Trump, which led Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Biden document mess:

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s handling of classified documents dating back to the Obama administration.

Garland tapped Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, to handle the investigation. The Justice Department escalated it to a special counsel investigation from a mere review on Thursday after a second stash of classified documents was found inside the garage of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. The first documents were found inside the Washington offices of the Penn Biden Center think tank.

Where’s the raid on Biden’s personal residence? After all, if there are multiple instances of classified documents scattered around Biden properties, how do we even know what’s out there?

Furthermore, it’s well-known that the entire Biden family trades on its name and connections to rake in millions of dollars in foreign money from businesses and governments. Were these document caches related to this somehow or merely a coincidence? Jonathan Turley explored that question since it’s worth asking.

This scandal hasn’t yet run its course and there could be more to come, continued from CNN:

And there could be more unflattering details to come out, since CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Phil Mattingly, Jeff Zeleny and Arlette Saenz revealed on Thursday a chaotic administrative process at the end of the Obama administration, which may have allowed vice presidential documents to go astray.

And from a practical political perspective, the deepening controversy has halted what many Democrats saw as a White House winning streak after Republicans fared more poorly than expected in November’s midterm elections. On Tuesday, Biden’s attempt to show he was serious about the southern border crisis was overwhelmed when the documents flap followed him to Mexico. Two days later, his attempt to take credit for a slowdown in inflation – the economic crisis that bedeviled the White House last year – degenerated into a back-and-forth over the documents issue.

There is another school of thought brewing that Biden is being intentionally deflated right before he considers announcing his 2024 re-election campaign. It’s an inside baseball type of view that wonders if someone within the ranks of the Democratic Party is trying to push Biden out of the way. Is it possible that Biden’s desire to run again is in direct conflict with the views of those around him?

If these documents, which stem from the Obama presidency, have been sitting around for years, why is the information just coming out now? We haven’t yet seen the end of this story but with Biden now in hot water over classified documents, it will become more difficult to charge the former President without charging the sitting president.

As they say, it’s not the crime that gets you in trouble, it’s the cover-up. What’s clear is that the Biden administration knew early on what was happening but tried to withhold the information as long as possible and chose to conceal details of the second document cache while admitting the first one.