The big buzz coming out of the investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents were admonishments about his mental competency. However, national security experts say there is much more to the story than that!
The experts say that Robert Hur’s characterization of President Joe Biden’s memory has obscured one of the most surprising findings in his report: evidence that Biden knowingly kept classified materials at home for years and failed to turn them in. That is perhaps the report’s most damaging finding: Biden knew he had classified documents in 2017, but there is no evidence he took steps to turn them in.
Despite Hur’s scathing characterization of Biden’s mental capacity to Democrats, the special counsel’s finding that there was no criminal case to bring against the President is the most important takeaway.
But to some national security experts, the disclosure that Biden told his ghostwriter that he discovered classified documents in his Virginia home in 2017 — with no indication he returned them — was unexpected and troubling. So was the revelation that Biden disclosed classified information to the ghostwriter on at least three occasions and that he stored notebooks full of state secrets in unlocked drawers in his home office.
They said a senior government official like Biden should be held to a higher ethical standard than whether a jury would convict him of a felony.
“It may not be criminal, but it’s reckless and awful because you have no idea what sources and methods you are putting at risk,” said NBC News legal contributor and former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg. “Someone who served as the vice president of the United States should know better.”
Biden, who has been immersed in the world of state secrets for decades, has taken a firm line on the handling of classified documents. When asked in September 2022 about Trump’s storing of classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago, he replied, “How could that happen? How could anyone be so irresponsible?”
But when classified documents were discovered in his Delaware garage and other places in December 2022, the oft forgetful President said he was surprised, adding, “People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.”
Another national security expert, Attorney Mark Zaid, who specializes in cases involving classified information, said Hur’s findings were “worse than I expected by way of the President’s conduct over the years. But even then, none of it surprised me.”
“His conduct was emblematic of what we see with former senior government officials all the time,” Zaid added. “It sends a horrible message to the workforce that our senior leadership is not held to account for its mishandling of classified information.”