Joe Biden Caught with Classified Documents: When does The FBI Raid Begin?

     It has been glaringly obvious for quite some time that, if you are a Republican, there is a whole other set of rules you must live by than if you are a Democrat. That is no doubt once again, going to be on full display. On Monday, it was reported that the Department of Justice is looking into several highly classified documents being found in the offices of President Joe Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Engagement, a Washington D.C. think tank. The documents, marked, “SCI,” or “sensitive compartmented information” were discovered as an office was being packed up by Biden’s personal attorneys. According to a report from The New York Post, as soon as the documents were discovered, the White House Counsel’s office contacted the National Archives, who took possession of them the following day.

     At the risk of sounding flippant about a potentially serious event, just a few observations on a few of these basic details are crying out to be made. The first one, a Biden think tank? Isn’t that a lot like a Joy Behar or AOC think tank? Second, are we to believe that this is a place where Joe Biden and possibly his acolytes thought about diplomacy? Because if so, the thought that immediately comes to mind is the quote from former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has consistently said that he believes Joe Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issues in the last 40 years.

     But in all seriousness, this discovery seems to put Joe Biden in an interesting spot. And as for the Department of Justice investigation of Trump and alleged classified documents, well, that is effectively dead in the water. Back in August of 2022, when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, the Florida home of former President Donald Trump, what were described as classified documents were found there as well. After the raid, the left was sure that this time was surely the smoking gun, and that Trump would be perp-walked to prison. In a “60 Minutes” interview, CBS’s Scott Pelley asked Biden what his thoughts on Trump possessing “classified documents” were. Biden replied, “How could that possibly happen? How one – anyone could be that irresponsible. And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? By that I mean names of people who helped or – et cetera. And it just – totally irresponsible.” Really?

   So, what are the differences here? Well for one, any classified documents that Donald Trump possessed, as president, he could deem unclassified when he took possession of them, however, legal scholars insist there is a process for declassification. For Vice Presidents, the question is murky. President George W. Bush signed an executive order in 2003 which essentially stated that Vice Presidents could declassify documents they had classified themselves. But the scope of those powers is unclear because it is not certain if a Vice President would be deemed a “supervisory official” who would have the power to declassify documents from intelligence agencies like the CIA or similar agencies.

     It is interesting to note that, according to a report from Breitbart, the documents were discovered on November 2. But didn’t we have a midterm election on November 8 you ask? Yes, yes, we did. Apparently, if something like information suppression works, you keep doing it. But that is not the most intriguing part of all of this. Several of these documents, dated between 2013 and 2016, contained information on Iran, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Wait a minute, aren’t House Republicans getting ready to launch investigations into Biden family ties, more specifically Joe and Hunter Biden ties to Ukraine? The report goes on to say that Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2014. In 2017, he was paid $83,000 a month, pretty good for a guy who knows nothing about energy or Ukraine. But when Joe Biden left the office of Vice President, Hunter’s salary was cut. Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine six times in seven years. One of Joe Biden’s most well-known excursions to Ukraine came in 2015, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion unless the Ukrainian government fired a prosecutor investigating Burisma. The University of Pennsylvania’s relationship with Joe Biden has been a goldmine in the form of very large donations from another favorite Biden family place of business, China. Between 2014 and 2019, the University raked in a staggering $54.6 million in donations from China. The Penn Biden Center denies any anonymous Chinese donations.

     While many Republicans and conservative pundits have asked when the FBI raid on Biden’s various residences will commence, Democrats and the left have of course jumped to Biden’s defense and claim there is a big difference between Biden and Trump. Joy Behar, who illustrated why she should get her own think tank, basically said what other liberal Democrats wanted to say but, in their defense, were actually smart enough to twist themselves into pretzels by saying it a number of other ways. You will hear from others in the coming days that the “difference” is that Trump obstructed the investigation. Behar’s conclusion, “We all know that Trump is a liar and a thief, we know that. So, it’s not that big a jump to say he obstructed, and he lied.” But because Joe Biden has a magic “D” behind his name, we shouldn’t “jump to conclusions.” “We don’t think Biden is a liar and a thief, so we give him the benefit of the doubt.” Can’t argue with logic like that. 

     As this goes to press, a second group of classified documents has been found at Joe Biden’s Wilmington Delaware home. The best part, some were found in his personal library, and others were found in the garage. But no worries, they were found right next to Biden’s vintage Corvette, which is kept under lock and key. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has surprisingly appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, a Trump appointee, as special counsel to investigate the documents. The FBI is also involved, but it is unclear how that is supposed to assure us that the investigation is being handled properly and fairly. While timing may be the name of the game here with the Biden team, thinking they have gotten out in front of the story and done the proper amount of damage control, perhaps the timing of a Republican-led House will be the most significant timing of all.