Posted on 01/25/2023 6:30:03 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON (AP) — At least three presidents. A vice president, a secretary of state, an attorney general. The mishandling of classified documents is not a problem unique to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
It’s been a problem off and on for decades, from presidents to Cabinet members and staff across multiple administrations stretching as far back as Jimmy Carter. The issue has taken on greater significance since Trump willfully retained classified material at his Florida estate, prompting the unprecedented FBI seizure of records last year.
It turns out former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of classified documents.
Current and former officials involved in the handling of classified information say that while there are clear policies for how such information should be reviewed and stored, those policies are sometimes pushed aside at the highest levels. Teams of national security officials, secretaries and military aides who share responsibility for keeping top-level executives informed — and the executives themselves — may bend the rules for convenience, expediency or sometimes due to carelessness.
While Trump intended to keep the documents — he’s argued, in apparent disregard of the Presidential Records Act, that they were his personal property — he was hardly the first president to mishandle classified information.
Former President Jimmy Carter found classified materials at his home in Plains, Georgia, on at least one occasion and returned them to the National Archives, according to the same person who spoke of regular occurrences of mishandled documents. The person did not provide details on the timing of the discovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I’ve never worked with government/intelligence classified information.
But, I have worked with Corporate secrets. In a couple of mergers I was involved in, we received confidential documents as we entered a conference room. We were not allowed to leave the room with those documents as we could use the information for “insider trading”. (Of course, we could have done that with our brains...but I digress.)
The corporate attorneys made sure every document was accounted for. They had checklists and counts. Everyone had to hand them back and get checked off as we left the room.
I guess I always figured there was someone who “tracked this stuff” in the government. Don’t they have a list of what each person received?
Can someone with some real world experience explain this to those of us who don’t understand how you just walk away with this stuff?
Yes, I noticed that also. See Tagline.
Remember though, Trump kept documents in a SAFE; Biden kept documents in a cardboard box next to his Corvette where Hunter Biden had access to them. That's the same Hunter Biden who was discharged from the Navy with a less than honorable discharge.
AP in toilet would be worth more …. nuts
All of a sudden, classified record laws are unimportant and “everybody does it”. Except when Trump does it, then it’s a heinous threat to democracy.
“Now that won’t happen and all those people who’ve been gnashing their teeth at the prospect of Trump being convicted of some dastardly crime, will need to settle down and realize that they were duped by the Democrats to get their votes.”
Nah, they’re just shifting to the next plan, which is probably the George “election interference” bogus crap. And if that doesn’t work, the Southern District of New York is looking for something to charge him with too.
This is actually a problem that goes all the way back to 11/22/63.
Our Constitution defines a “unitary executive”. Every administrative action from the Executive Branch - all of it - is supposed to be done by the President, or by an inferior officer operating under his authority.
Taking this literally would have made controlling, correcting, or disciplining the President from within the Executive Branch impossible.
But the post-WWII intelligence agencies did not like that arrangement, or its implications.
We are now living with the results. It’s wrong to see them as partisans, in an R vs D sense. If a President knows the score and goes along, there won’t be any trouble. R or D, no matter.
But if you are the President and you imagine THEY work for YOU? THat has a way of not working out.
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