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In the same week, news broke that Joe Biden had taken classified government documents from his time as vice president in the Obama administration to a private Penn Biden Center office, another story late yesterday afternoon reported that those weren't the only sensitive documents Biden took with him in an alleged violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Be informed, not misled.
NBC News reported this late yesterday afternoon:
Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Since November, after the discovery of documents with classified markings in his former office, Biden aides have been searching for any additional classified materials that might be in other locations he used, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
NBC's reporting that Biden had additional classified documents in a second location dropped less than one hour after the end of Wednesday's White House press briefing by Karine Jean-Pierre in which Biden's spokeswoman reiterated multiple times that the president takes classified information "seriously," though she refused to answer a number of questions about the apparent dereliction.
It appears that the White House very likely knew about the second set of documents yesterday, while press secretary Jean-Pierre was refusing to answer reporters who were asking if President Biden felt it was a mistake to take the classified documents.
The question was prompted because reporters remembered that it was Biden who said he couldn't understand how his predecessor, Donald Trump "could be so irresponsible to have classified documents from his time in the White House in his private Mar-A-Lago estate."
Yesterday we learned that Biden took classified United States documents to his private office. Now we're learning that he, apparently, took additional classified documents to another private unsecured office.
Questions
This second revelation is raising even more serious questions.
- How many classified documents did Biden improperly possess after leaving office?
- Are there more yet to be found?
- If, as Biden claims, he was "shocked" that the first set was discovered, how can we be sure Biden knows how many sensitive documents he took with him when he left office in 2017?
- And how do we know he remembers where he took them all? Will we ever know if or how many are still missing?
- Who has had access to these classified documents?
- What were the lawyers who found the documents at the Penn Biden Center looking for?
- Why were they clearing out an office that apparently sat unused for more than three years?
- Where else might the documents have been kept before the Penn Biden Center opened in February 2018
- Why were the papers allowed to leave the White House in the first place and stay out of federal custody for six years in the first place?
These and other questions are prompting some Republican lawmakers to launch calls for Biden's Attorney General to appoint a "Special Counsel" to conduct a full investigation beyond the preliminary review of the first set of classified documents currently underway by a U.S. attorney in Illinois.
I noted yesterday that one of the differences between Biden taking classified documents and Trump having them in a private office is that Trump was president. Biden was vice president.
The president has the power to de-classify documents. The vice president does not. That could become a major issue as this continues to unfold.
Takeaway
Privately, an administration official told the New York Post yesterday that the White House was reluctant to shed more light on the document issue because "anything you say could potentially (expletive) up" the Justice Department review by appearing to influence the process.
As this matter unfolds, keep in mind that it was Joe Biden, former Vice President of the United States, who told the "Transparency International" convention in Bucharest Romania in May 2014:
"Corruption is a cancer: A cancer that eats away at citizen's faith in democracy and diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.