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Everyone agrees President JOE BIDEN stepped in it along with his handling of classified documents present in an office he had in D.C. and his home in Wilmington.
The query is: just how much shit did he step in, legally and politically?
To reply that, we called up MARK ZAID, a distinguished national security attorney who has extensive experience coping with claims around mishandling classified information. Below is an edited version of our talk.
What’s your Occam’s Razor explanation for what happened here?
What happened is what I see occur fairly often. Folks pack up their offices after they leave federal employment and mistakenly take classified documents with them.
The laymen perception though is different. People have a look at this and wonder: How could you most likely commingle classified materials? They’re clearly marked.
It ought to be something that is totally avoidable. But it is vitally easy for documents to be packed up amongst other documents and commingled in order that classified information is mistakenly grabbed with unclassified information.
Had you been within the White House on Nov. 2, the day the primary batch of documents was discovered, what steps would you might have taken?
I might not have revealed it on the day out of concern of influencing, unfairly and unduly, the elections. Where I might have differed and where I feel the Biden administration is committing unforced errors was that, when the White House acknowledged there have been documents found on Nov. 2, they didn’t reveal the Dec. twentieth find over at his Delaware residence. That was a whole PR political blunder.
Are they simply not revealing enough in real time?
I don’t know what I don’t know. But assuming that that is strictly irresponsibility on the a part of some third party staffer and Biden never even knew about it, then I might have answered more basic questions.
Like what?
What else is in these boxes? What else is surrounding it? Do a greater explanation for why the private lawyers and never the federal government lawyers are searching through the boxes. The notion that they found the document within the adjoining room and that’s the only amount of detail I actually have heard, why? What does that mean? What the hell is the adjoining room?
Do we actually care concerning the quality of the room? Isn’t the larger query: What’s within the documents?
I’m not concerned about any of those blunders with respect to legal liability. The blunder pertains to public perception and undermining your credibility.
Going forward, what would you do when you were advising the White House?
I might designate a non-White House individual, a lawyer with experience in handling classified information and investigations, to be the precise spokesperson to handle any issues related to this matter. Having the White House comms staff doing it only causes further problems.
Would you advise Biden to simply expeditiously sit down with the Special Counsel?
Uh, yeah. They should do all the things that [DONALD] TRUMP didn’t.
Wait. Have you ever been approached by the White House for guidance?
I actually have not. I actually have not been approached by Trump or by Biden.
Does it surprise you that they didn’t search for materials after the Trump matter broke?
It doesn’t surprise me however it disappoints me that they didn’t have the foresight to think that far ahead. Accidents occur and everybody thinks: ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have done that.’
Do you’re thinking that Barack Obama has been looking through his garage the last couple weeks for classified files?
In the event that they were smart they’d be doing that. I’m surprised and upset, I suppose, at any sitting president who, when what was occurring with former President Trump, didn’t get spurred to ascertain.
Is the double standard between Trump and Biden or between Biden and, say, a mid level staffer who could have unknowingly taken classified papers with him? How much trouble would that person be in immediately?
I’m actually not going to disclaim a double standard exists. I argue it on a regular basis. However it’s not black and white. I’ve had senior government officials treated worse than lower government officials. It really depends upon the facts of the case. So, yes, the method is fraught with inconsistencies and arbitrariness. However it really depends upon so many aspects that we are able to’t have a look at it in a vacuum. And let’s be realistic, a former vp or president is all the time going to be treated in a different way. It’s not a good comparison to make because there are such a lot of issues around taking motion against that individual.
MESSAGE US —Are you someone who has been approached by the White House for guidance on Biden’s document drama? We wish to listen to from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at [email protected]
This one is from Allie. Which president had surgery to remove a cancerous polyp in his large intestine on the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland?
(Answer at the underside.)
“HE DOESN’T WORK HERE ANYMORE”: We told you Tuesday that The Each day Show’s ROY WOOD JR. was on campus filming the White House visit by the Golden State Warriors. And boy did the administration play ball, giving Wood time with Biden himself within the Diplomatic Room. When asked by Wood why the Dubs didn’t attend a White House celebration after winning titles in 2017 and 2018, Biden had a solution ready.
“You’d need to ask the opposite guy,” he said, struggling to carry back a smirk. “But he doesn’t work here any more.”
EIGHTH AVENUE HEARTACHE: There’s a glimmer of optimism throughout the Latest York Times guild after Wednesday’s contract talks with management, during which the newsroom got here down barely on its demand for pay increases and accepted the corporate’s position on pension plans, which can remain as they’re. But the problem of returning to the office continues to be extremely contentious.
The guild said its negotiators asked management if its demand for workers to return to the newsroom five days per week was driven by tax exemptions, present in public records. Those exemptions are as a result of net the corporate $10.75 million over the following seven years — but provided that the newsroom is fully staffed. The NYT’s negotiators, after telling the guild in December there was no financial motivation behind its RTO position, “said they weren’t aware of these subsidies and would want more time to research the problem and address our questions.” Oof.
BYEEEE: CECILIA VEGA, ABC’s chief White House correspondent, is leaving the network and heading to CBS to be a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” She’ll begin her recent job within the spring. WaPo’s JEREMY BARR has more details on the move.
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: A few of Biden’s closest aides and allies perceive his classified document drama to be “‘DC elite’ making ‘DC noise,’” CNN’s EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE reports. “They argue that the eye to those documents may prove to be only the newest passing obsession, and that most of the questions they’re facing are from journalists and politicians who aren’t accepting that Biden is ‘honoring his promise to a T by upholding the rule of law and respecting DOJ’s process,’ in line with a Biden adviser.”
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by WaPo’s TIMOTHY PUKO about how Biden’s climate goals are facing some pretty big hurdles: “The delays, which affect all the things from the vehicles Americans drive to the ability plants that light their homes, are raising concerns on whether the Biden administration can finalize enduring actions on climate before the tip of the president’s first term. … A convergence of obstacles is contributing to the delays, including staff shortages and concerns that federal courts could reverse any ambitious climate rules.”
DALTON’S DEBUT: Principal deputy press secretary OLIVIA DALTON on Thursday held her first gaggle with reporters while traveling to California with the president. Asked whether her role was to talk on behalf of Biden’s interests, or to offer accurate information to the general public, Dalton said the president’s “first priority is to deliver for the American people, and definitely I see myself as being in service of that goal.”
Dalton, who began in her job in August, has yet to seem at the rostrum and hadn’t been the lead press staffer on a presidential trip until Thursday. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, who had the identical role as Dalton when she served under her predecessor JEN PSAKI, held her first briefing after 4 months on that job. By that time, she also had held five gaggles aboard Air Force One.
Dalton’s debut coincides with rising tensions within the briefing room, the main focus of OLIVER DARCY’s CNN media newsletter Wednesday evening. The White House press corps, he wrote, has “grown exasperated with Jean-Pierre and doesn’t imagine she is well equipped to handle their inquiries.”
YELLEN GOES TO AFRICA: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN is starting her trip to Africa with a transparent message to the continent: America is here to assist, Axios’ HANS NICHOLS reports. “The US is all in on Africa, and all in with Africa,” Yellen will say in a speech she’ll give in Dakar, Senegal. The comments are a rebuttal to China’s recent efforts to bolster its influence within the region by investing in infrastructure, plans the administration hopes to counteroffer.
MEANWHILE, AT HOME… Yellen said Thursday that the federal government has reached its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit and has begun using “extraordinary measures” to pay its bills, our ZACHARY WARMBRODT reports. (Individually, Zachary and VICTORIA GUIDA break down in a write up here what that every one means and what’s to return.)
PERSONNEL MOVES: JOSH HSU, former counsel to Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, will join the law firm Jenner & Block in March. Hsu, who also worked on Harris’ presidential campaign and the Biden-Harris transition team, left the White House on Jan. 5 after two years there.
MEET THE WELCOME CORPS: Private U.S. residents will give you the option to directly sponsor refugees entering the U.S. through a recent program called the “Welcome Corps,” our KELLY GARRITY reports. This system allows groups of 5 or more Americans to assist refugees with all the things from funds to finding a spot to live upon their U.S. entry. The State Department often relies on non profit organizations for similar help.
CALLING ON THE ADMINISTRATION: A coalition of 292 advocacy groups sent a letter to the Biden administration urging for a reversal of an immigration policy that might deem some asylum seekers to be ineligible for entry, The Hill’s RAFAEL BERNAL reports. “Your administration’s announcement of plans to determine a presumption of asylum ineligibility for people who don’t use ‘established pathways to lawful migration’ and don’t apply for cover in countries of transit advances the agenda of the Trump administration, which repeatedly sought to impose similar asylum bans,” the groups wrote.
Is the Joke on Joe Biden? (Peter Funt for WSJ)
America Hit Its Debt Limit, Setting Up Bitter Fiscal Fight (NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport)
By the numbers: President Biden on the two-year mark (AP’s Aamer Madhani)
In 1985, RONALD REAGAN had surgery to “remove a cancerous polyp in his large intestine. Doctors also removed 2 feet of Reagan’s lower intestine,” in line with our write up from 2010. “After the surgery, Reagan quipped, ‘Well, I’m glad that’s all out.’”
A CALL OUT — Do you’re thinking that you might have a harder trivia query? Send us your best one concerning the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.
Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.
