Biden just put Obama in a delightfully serious bind

American Thinker ^ | 10 Jan, 2023 | Andrea Widburg

[MtnClimber]

The headline is delicious: Vice President Biden left the White House taking classified documents with him. However, what’s really lovely is the problem this creates for Obama: After all, he’s the only one who can rescue Biden but, by doing so, he will completely exonerate Trump of the charges that the latter violated national security laws by taking documents with him when he left the White House.

Both Rajan Laad and Howard J. Warner have ably covered the factual issues surrounding the news that Biden took classified documents with him when he left the Vice President’s office. They addressed how the Washington establishment had the story before the midterms but covered it up; how that same establishment (including the media) that castigated Trump as a traitor and arch-criminal for allegedly having classified material in his possession is now racing to make excuses for Biden; and how it’s possible that China had access to the materials because it has access to the University of Pennsylvania Biden “think tank” in which the documents resided for so many years.

What I find so delectable is that Biden has only one defense to the charge that he stole classified documents from the White House, which is a felony (as Democrats never failed to remind us when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago). That defense is that Obama, who was president when Biden took the documents, gave him permission to take them, effectively declassifying them.

This defense works because the President of the United States is the ultimate authority about whether to declassify documents. Moreover, as I never tire of saying, the president doesn’t need to go through any rubberstamp process, nor does he need to consult with the bureaucrats who work for him.

[lepton]

Rajan Laad
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/scandal_alert_biden_lawyers_found_classified_material_at_bidens_former_office.html

and Howard J. Warner
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/biden_took_classified_documents_out_of_the_white_house_too.html

[lepton]

Not ‘for nothing’. They were able to use it against him all fall, as well as getting Republican factions to fight about it and discredit each other.

[lepton]

Unfortunately they wound up the special prosecutor.

And once those guys get started, they never want to end the billable hours.

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Often. But as with Mueller/Weissman, sometimes they can simply refuse to look in certain places.

[lepton]

I bet GW Bush and Clinton also have classified documents in their stash.

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They likely do, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as the archives have a complete copy, and they are secure. What matters is what specifically the documents were and whether they were secured. The Trump thing was about creating a conflict.