The truth about Biden's document debacle: He didn't 'self-report' | The Hill
Category: Op/Ed
Via: texan1211 • last year • 61 commentsBy: Andrew C. McCarthy, Opinion Contributor (The Hill)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
by Andrew C. McCarthy, Opinion Contributor - 01/24/23 9:00 AM ET
With yet more classified documents seized during a long-overdue search by the FBI of the president's Wilmington, Del., home, President Biden's apologists are even more stridently portraying him as a cooperative public servant who "self-reported" his wrongdoing — as compared to his predecessor, who fought government efforts to acquire records he retained for well over a year.
Put aside that this is largely beside the point, the main issue being Biden's serial violations of the federal criminal law that controls classified intelligence, not how supposedly helpful he has been to investigators. The fact is, he did not self-report — certainly not in the manner he suggests.
To "self-report" a crime, a person needs to report it to law enforcement authorities. Biden and his aides absolutely did not do that. Moreover, a close look at the timeline elucidates that the White House hoped this issue would slip quietly into a black hole, with no publicity and no criminal investigation.
On Nov. 2, 2022, the first batch of classified documents — some of which were marked "TS/SCI" (i.e., top secret, sensitive compartmented information), the classification level applied to the government's most sensitive intelligence — were found by Biden's private lawyers at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in an office the president used as a private citizen after his term as Obama administration vice president ended.
This was indicative of several felony offenses of federal law. First, the Penn Biden Center did not open until February 2018. Biden obviously took the documents when he left the Obama White House in January 2017, so they had to have been illegally retained at some other unauthorized location for 13 months — meaning they had to have been illegally transported at least twice. Second, Biden directed his Penn Biden Center office to be packed up by his private lawyers, who did not have security clearances (and by the way, even if they had them, that would not necessarily mean they'd be authorized to review TS/SCI documents). Causing national defense information to be exposed to unauthorized persons is also a crime.
What happened next is critical: The Biden private attorney who took the lead on the first batch of documents is Patrick Moore. Moore did not report his discovery of highly classified documents retained in an unlawful place to law-enforcement — i.e., to the FBI or the Department of Justice (DOJ). He reported them to the Biden White House.
We do not know who at the White House participated in the deliberations over what to do about the classified documents discovery. What we know is that the White House did not report the discovery to law enforcement. Instead, it reported the discovery to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), an executive agency (i.e., it reports to the president) that is essentially a records repository, not a law enforcement agency.
Moreover, NARA's leadership, under acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall, has worked closely with the Biden administration. When former President Trump tried to assert executive privilege over government records he had retained at Mar-a-Lago, it was up to Biden — under the Presidential Records Act — to decide whether to support that claim. Politically, though, Biden did not want to be seen as participating in an investigation of his rival. To help him out of that pickle, Wall issued an edict rejecting Trump's privilege claim, as if she had made the decision about a presidential privilege that only Biden had legal authority to make.
More recently, when House Republicans demanded information from NARA about Biden's mishandling of classified documents, NARA refused to cooperate. Provision of its own records to Congress, the agency claimed, could interfere with the special counsel's probe, so it must be left to the Justice Department to decide on disclosure matters. This is exactly the stonewall position the Biden White House wants executive agencies to take.
In alerting NARA about the documents found on Nov. 2, Biden was not reporting his likely criminal offenses. At best, the Biden White House was letting the records repository know that there was a batch of Obama-era records that needed to be returned to government files. We don't even know if the White House told NARA that some of the records were classified. In any event, the White House arranged for representatives of NARA officials to take the documents.
So, who reported the matter to law enforcement? That was done by the office of NARA's inspector general, Dr. Brett M. Baker. The IG is not an ordinary executive official. Rather, it is a watchdog position, created by Congress to keep the agency on the straight and narrow by conducting internal investigations and reporting misconduct to Congress. Most executive agencies have IG offices — and Baker has worked in several of them.
The NARA IG's office would have recognized that, if classified information was included in the Biden documents, then there were potential crimes and the Justice Department would have to be notified — just as NARA notified the DOJ when it found classified information in boxes of records that Trump returned to NARA about a year ago.
Biden did not report his misconduct to law-enforcement or to the public. Furthermore, there is reason to believe he intended for the public never to know. The public learned about Biden's illegal retention of classified intelligence because CBS News — not Biden — reported it on Jan. 9. Only then did the White House and the president confess that the CBS report was true.
But here's the thing: Prior to Jan. 9, there had been a second discovery of illegally retained classified documents: the ones found in Biden's Wilmington garage on Dec. 20. CBS mustn't have known about that one because it wasn't mentioned in the Jan. 9 report. Clearly, though, the Biden White House knew about it — Biden's private lawyers found the documents; by then, thanks to the NARA-IG the Justice Department had opened an investigation, so the Biden lawyers quietly told the DOJ, which quietly sent the FBI to Biden's home to retrieve the garage documents.
Yet, when the White House conceded on Jan. 9 that Biden had retained documents, it concealed the Dec. 20 garage documents — i.e., it confirmed only what CBS had reported about the Nov. 2 Penn Biden Center documents.
Obviously, the White House hoped that no one would find out about the second discovery in the Wilmington garage. But then CBS's Jan. 9 report was quickly followed by press reports about the documents found in the garage, as well as yet a third set of classified documents found in Biden's Wilmington home (in his den) on Jan. 12. At that point, the cat was out of the bag, and there were so many violations that Attorney General Merrick Garland had no choice but to appoint a special counsel to conduct a criminal investigation.
Biden did not self-report to law enforcement. And Biden has not been transparent with the public. The president hoped to bury the whole embarrassing story. Once it emerged, he did what Washington politicians do: He said as little as he thought he could get away with, gauged by what the news media had uncovered, and he pretended that these grudging, mounting concessions showed self-reporting and transparency. They didn't.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, a contributing editor at National Review, a Fox News contributor and the author of several books, including "Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad." Follow him on Twitter @AndrewCMcCarthy.our ago Campaign
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I wonder why the first set of records were looked at by Biden's lawyers? Did he have some kind of "aha? moment and want to get ahead of a scandal?
His lack of transparency will likely cost him the reelection, and result in no prosecution of Trump.
They were found by Biden's lawyers. Did you want them to keep their eyes closed?
They informed the proper authority. Just like Pence did.
That is only your opinion, nothing else.
Try again. They sent them to the Brandon administration; who then sent them to NARA.
The NARA Inspector General informed the Justice Department.
Pence turned the classified documents over to the DOJ directly.
Not that Pence should have a hand picked paid for sanitation team (who doesn't have security clearance) searching for classified documents either.
A responsible person or Administration would have contacted the owner of the documents. Which is exactly who they contacted. Just exactly what crime would they have reported to the DOJ?
[deleted]
You don't think he was authorized to have the documents when he got them? Just how do you think he got them???
Once again, what crime???
How did he secure the documents?
From his Senate days? Try the hell again! Senators have no right to possess classified documents, period.
And they only way he would be allowed to have classified documents from his VP days is if his office classified them; and he declassified them. Zero proof of that.
If you are trying to claim Trump is guilty; then Brandon is sure as hell is guilty!
What crime????????????????????????????
What a ridiculous statement. Since you know so much about them, what were these classified documents about?
Someone else????
Are you Ronin2 as well as Texan1211? If you ARE NOT, then I already did address it to someone else. If you ARE, then shame on you.
”…to follow along…”
….and isn’t that how we have come to this place…complacent, complicit in but following along?
Violating the PRA is not criminal. If you want to consider criminality then you need to turn to law such as the espionage act. Merely having documents is not criminal. To be criminal, one must prove intent to do harm to the USA and/or gross negligence.
Pence is still well within the realm of the PRA. Biden, as more documents are discovered, is making it more possible to argue gross negligence. Trump, given the volume of documents and his tacit admission that he knew they were classified, is within the realm of the espionage act.
This is academic since none of these men will be charged with a crime due to partisan politics. But it is important to understand where we cross the line from wrongful act to criminal act.
Doesn't matter to texan1211. A democrat did it, therefore he should be locked up whether a crime is actually involved or not.
I have been making the same basic arguments since this started with Trump. It is amusing to see how the rebuttals change as we move from Trump to Biden and now to Pence.
Some people just cannot stand to objectively go with facts and most always choose a partisan-desired reality and then try to spin towards same.
If you speak of crimes you are implicitly speaking of "locking one up".
“…an entirely different kind of following along,”
Do tell.
You are a hoot.
It is ridiculous to tie "lock 'em up" to a criminal act?
What, in your world, does "lock 'em up" mean if not to punish someone for alleged criminal behavior?
No matter who said it, I want a kiss first...
Do you understand that violating the PRA is NOT, in itself, a criminal act?
Why reply if you are going to simply dodge a direct question?
No, it is not a crime to merely violate the PRA. Having said docs in a non-secure site, moved or otherwise, is NOT a crime.
It was not a crime for Trump to have those documents in his possession. It is not a crime for Biden and it is not a crime for Pence.
The crime, if any, would be if a case can be made that these documents were intended to harm the USA or if a case can be made for gross negligence.
Merely possessing (and/or moving) these documents is a violation of the PRA, but it is not, in itself, a crime.
Maybe he means kidnapping and false imprisonment???
Given you are continuing your charade, you wrote this:
So you incorrectly think that merely moving/holding these documents in a non-secure, approved place is a crime .
That alone is not criminal for Trump, Biden or Pence.
Same old bullshit cliches from you.
I quoted you incorrectly claiming that it was a crime to not have docs secured and to move them. You are incorrect. Your predictable dodges cannot change your words.
68 days before disclosure because of the below listed "support" staff.
The initial discussions on how to deal with the discovery were tightly held by a core group of Biden loyalists led by the husband and wife team of Bob Bauer, who is Biden's personal attorney, and Anita Dunn, who serves as a senior adviser in the White House.
Also in the discussions were Biden's sister Valerie Biden Owens; White House senior adviser Mike Donilon; White House counsel Stuart Delery; and White House lawyer Richard Sauber.
The argument of this seed is that Biden did not self-report because he reported to NARA and did not directly report to the DoJ. Reporting to NARA does not count as reporting because the seed says so.
At least the seed tacitly admits that Biden did indeed report the find to NARA —who certainly would be the logical entity to deal with violations of the PRA— and that NARA IG in turn informed the DoJ. Violating the PRA is not, in itself,criminal. It is wrong to violate it, but violating the PRA does not yield criminal charges.
The phrase ‘self-report’ is being redefined to exclude NARA and to presume a criminal act. The reporting on Biden's "self-reporting" consistently stated that Biden reported to NARA. But now, of course, that is not really "self-reporting" ... the new definition of "self-reporting" means reporting directly to the DoJ.
Partisans and their dishonest spin for partisan purposes.
I usually stop reading when I see "Opinion Contributor" in the byline. I'll be happen when I see this age of political confirmation bias go away.
The level of dishonesty nowadays is staggering.
It must have been pretty painful for this opinion contributor's article to be upended by the revelation of Pence's documents just a few hours later.
Tightly wound people just won't listen. NARA has an Inspector General who decides who to slap on the wrist and who to refer to the DOJ for further investigation and possible prosecution.
Reporting to NARA is automatically referred to the DOJ.
It's been in the news cycle for a year and yet Pence and his private attorney were surprised when the FBI showed up to collect the documents.