By: Charley Gilewicz

Early last November, President Biden’s lawyers found classified documents from his time as Vice President. They found these documents when packing files from an office he was using in DC for his work at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. 

In a “locked closet,” they discovered some classified files which were promptly turned over to the National Archives. Once the files arrived, the National Archives inspector general informed the Department of Justice of the discovery. John Lausch, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Chicago, oversaw an assessment of the materials.

On December 20th, 2022, another set of documents had been found in the garage of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. These documents were promptly secured by the FBI.

On January 11th of this year, 2 days after the news about the documents had been broken to the general public, Biden’s lawyers searched his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Another document was found.

On the 12th of January, the White House reported that the review was over, but announced that there were five more pages that were found in Biden’s Wilmington home on the Thursday of that week.

The White House claims that this was unintentional and that President Biden has been compliant and took the handling of the classified documents very seriously. He has been cooperating “fully and completely” with the Justice Department. Additionally, The White House says that President Biden does not know the contents of these documents.

The general public also does not know the contents of the files, other than they were from when Former President Obama was in office. 

On February 1st, it was announced that no classified documents were found in his Rehoboth Beach home, just some handwritten notes from his time as Vice President that were confiscated. 

The news of the FBI’s search of Biden’s private homes in both Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware occurred shortly after the news of former President Donald Trump being under investigation for over 100 classified documents, including some marked top secret, were found after the FBI performed a search at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last year.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said it is good that the president is cooperating with the inquiry. 

“I’m sure that he says, ‘Hey, everything I have is fair game.’ I think that’s very open, very honest. And that’s great,” Manchin said. “I don’t think there’s any resistance, is there? I would think, if anything, he’d probably encourage it to be done.” (NBC)

Biden’s critics have claimed that the way Biden’s administration handled the classified documents found in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in particular the FBI raid, was “unfair” compared to how the classified documents found in Biden’s home were handled. 

“Another faux pas by the Biden administration by treating law differently based upon your political beliefs…Treats President Trump one way but treats President Biden a whole different way,” (NPR) said Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a press conference on Thursday.

Other Republicans said that the Biden Administration should have disclosed the discovery sooner as the first documents were found on November 4th: 6 days before the midterm elections.

However, many are saying that both situations are similar, but not identical. In Trump’s case, the National Archives found and identified the missing documents and requested their return. 

Trump initially resisted returning them, and his lawyers allegedly misled federal investigators. After months of back-and-forth between Trump’s lawyers and the government, the documents were returned in boxes. These boxes contained 184 classified documents, including 25 marked “Top Secret,” and others that contained national security information. Since several were not sent, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in August to retrieve the remaining documents. 

Since the number of documents Biden had was smaller and he was more compliant with the taking of them, the reaction was much less severe than in Trump’s case.

Overall, a majority of politicians in office believe that both cases damage the credibility of The White House. 

In an interview with NPR, Leon Panetta, former US Secretary of Defense said “It’s both an embarrassment and damaging to the credibility of the White House because obviously, the president has criticized former president Trump and the way he handled classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.”