Biden classified documents

[Syne]

Democrat suggests classified docs in Biden's home, office may have been 'planted' after second batch found

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said he isn't ruling out foul play in the discovery of classified documents found in President Biden's possession, suggesting they could have been planted.

"Alleged classified documents showing up allegedly in the possession of Joseph Biden… I’m suspicious of the timing of it," Johnson told Fox News' Hillary Vaughn on Thursday after a second batch of documents was found in the president's garage in Wilmington, Delaware. "I'm also aware of the fact that things can be planted on people... things can be planted in places and then discovered conveniently. That may be what has occurred here. I'm not ruling that out. But I'm open in terms of the investigation needs to be investigated."

If so, that literally means those three locations where classified documents were found were not, as Biden claims, secure. Very insecure if political opponents could access those locations, and fairly insecure if Biden handlers without top secret clearance could access them...potentially because the party has decided to sink a Biden reelection.


The National Archives were notified of the first classified documents found on November 2, days before the midterm election...where Trump-supported/supporting candidates campaigned under the shadow of his Mar-a-Lago raid for classified documents the FBI was aware of well in advance. The only convenient thing here seems to be not telling the voting public until well after the elections.

[Zinjanthropos]

Could be Biden’s mental deterioration and that he just forgot where he put them down. How’d did they know where to look? Did Sleepy not remember to return papers he took home to read and someone in the office noticed them missing?

[Syne]

Apparently his lawyers found the first ones while closing down his Penn Biden Center offices (a supposed "think tank" at the University of Pennsylvania, where Biden and others earned money from "jobs" they didn't even have to show up for). After that, they supposedly went looking for other classified documents at Biden's home.

Joe has no excuse, as he wasn't anywhere near as senile when he left the Obama administration (where the classified documents came from) and he scolded Trump for being so irresponsible for having classified documents in a single, more secure location. And even though Whoopi Goldberg suggested someone should have known classified documents were missing, that kind of ignores the fact that copies could exist.

[stryder]

The question is whether it's copies of a document or the original. If it's copies then it's about having information floating around in a particular circle at a given time and not having a comptroller to make sure that the documents where abouts are known at all times.

In this day and age though it's questionable that plaintext documents of national security are still being handled that way. It wouldn't take much to merge cryptography with a dash of virtualised salt to make sure the physical document is illegible unless in a specific geolocked location, with specific equipment and a specific clearance level. (Some might question why still have a physical document at all, however it's a physical tie to identifying that the information has a source and is credible, if it's all just electronically handled then authenticity could always be brought into question.)

All in all it doesn't matter which person left a document sat somewhere, the real question is why is the system allowing that currently? It's not about putting people through a legal mincer for doing things wrong, it's about bring into specification the right way of how things should be handled so such things aren't repeated.

[Syne]

Blaming the system for the failures of those utilizing/administering the system is a non-starter. Biden knew the rules for handling classified document, even excoriating Trump. The difference is that Trump knew he had them and where, even letting the FBI inspect how they were stored (which is the only reason they knew where to raid), and Biden claims he didn't know what he had or where. The latter is clearly more irresponsible than the former, and no amount of safeguards can keep those with legitimate access from being reckless. Like Hillary keeping classified info on a personal server, vulnerable to hacking from foreign powers.

Once you have clearance to such info, there's no way top stop you from transforming how it's stored, presented, or transferred.

[Magical Realist]

So tired of this! How hard is it to return classified documents after you used them? Were not Trump and Biden and their personnel informed of the procedures for handling them?

[Syne]

The difference is that Trump had the power to declassify anything at the time. Biden never did.

[Yazata]

"Alleged classified documents showing up allegedly in the possession of Joseph Biden… I’m suspicious of the timing of it," Johnson told Fox News' Hillary Vaughn on Thursday after a second batch of documents was found in the president's garage in Wilmington, Delaware. "I'm also aware of the fact that things can be planted on people... things can be planted in places and then discovered conveniently. That may be what has occurred here. I'm not ruling that out. But I'm open in terms of the investigation needs to be investigated."

If so, that literally means those three locations where classified documents were found were not, as Biden claims, secure. Very insecure if political opponents could access those locations, and fairly insecure if Biden handlers without top secret clearance could access them...potentially because the party has decided to sink a Biden reelection.

We know that Hunter had access to the garage where the Corvette and some of the top-secret documents were kept. So how secure could it have been?

I don't have any solid evidence, but I get the definite feeling that the 'Deep State' has turned on old Joe. They might fear that he would lose to Trump or Desantis, so they want him out of the way in plenty of time to install a new Democrat presidential candidate for 2024. So he's less the useful figurehead willing to sign whatever they place on his desk, and more of a perceived liability.

I doubt if they planted the documents on Biden (though they easily could have) but they don't seem to be rallying to his defense very vigorously either. They might hope that this scandal persuades Joe not to run again.

Somebody initially leaked the presence of the documents. The same people who were leaking constantly with Trump? But this time they are letting Joe's lawyers conduct the searches, not FBI SWAT with automatic weapons, perhaps because letting material on things like Joe's and Hunters' side businesses get loose might wreck Joe's continued usefulness to them for the next two years.