Robert Hur report

Special counsel Robert Hur said President Biden, during his time as a private citizen, “willfully” kept classified documents on Afghanistan and more from his time in the Obama administration, according to the report he issued Thursday.

  The Hill

Full 388-page report is in that article.

And he also said some other stuff...

In opting not to bring charges, Hur, who was appointed by former President Trump to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland in 2017, cited the shortage of evidence, but also how Biden would present himself to a jury.

[...]

“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

The report on more than one occasion refers to Biden struggling to remember things when he spoke to a ghostwriter for his memoir, as well as when he was speaking to investigators.

Hur cited Biden’s 2017 conversations with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, which Hur described as “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.”

“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” Hur wrote.

[...]

The special counsel at one point in the report wrote that Biden “did not remember when he was vice president,” forgetting when his term ended, and in another instance forgot when his term began. Hur reported Biden did not remember when his son Beau had died, and his memory “appeared hazy” when speaking about a debate over Afghanistan that was critical to his memoirs.

[...]

Twice this week Biden has confused the names of European leaders he met with at a Group of Seven Summit early in his presidency.

  The Hill

There's some good Republican campaign fodder.

“If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation,” Alex Pfeiffer, communications director for the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., said in a statement.

[...]

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur as the special counsel handling the investigation in January of 2023, shortly after it was made public that classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Delaware home.

Maybe not the best choice on Garland's part.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02/10/2024:

I have a feeling that if Biden is reelected, Merrick Garland will be replaced.  He'll certainly be replaced if a Republican is elected, so he's probably a one-term AG.  Too bad he didn't get a shot at the Supreme Court, because his career is pretty much over.

Missing intelligence binder

A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed.

[...]

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election.

[...]

In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.

  CNN

And we can't check the Russian embassy.

The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation.

[...]

The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

[...]

The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists.

Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions.

[...]

One theory has emerged about the binder’s whereabouts.

Cassidy Hutchinson, one of Meadows’ top aides, testified to Congress and wrote in her memoir that she believes Meadows took home an unredacted version of the binder. She said it had been kept in Meadows’ safe and that she saw him leave with it from the White House.

“I am almost positive it went home with Mr. Meadows,” Hutchinson told the January 6 committee in closed-door testimony, according to transcripts released last year.

Meadows denies it, of course.

In the years since Trump left office, his allies have pursued the redacted binder so they can release it publicly, suing the Justice Department and the National Archives earlier this year. And Trump’s lawyers are now seeking access to the classified intelligence from the 2016 election assessment as they prepare for his defense against charges stemming from efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Oh my

One of former President Donald Trump's long-time assistants told federal investigators that Trump repeatedly wrote to-do lists for her on documents from the White House that were marked classified.

[...]

[Molly Michael] told investigators that -- more than once -- she received requests or taskings from Trump that were written on the back of notecards, and she later recognized those notecards as sensitive White House materials -- with visible classification markings -- used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international-related matters.

The notecards with classification markings were at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate when FBI agents searched the property on Aug. 8, 2022 -- but the materials were not taken by the FBI.

[...]

When Michael, who was not present for the search, returned to Mar-a-Lago the next day to clean up her office space, she found the documents underneath a drawer organizer and helped transfer them to the FBI that same day.

  ABC

So who put them under the drawer organizer?

Michael also told federal investigators that last year she grew increasingly concerned with how Trump handled recurring requests from the National Archives for the return of all government documents being kept in boxes at Mar-a-Lago -- and she felt that Trump's claims about it at the time would be easy to disprove.

Sources said that after Trump heard the FBI wanted to interview Michael last year, Trump allegedly told her, "You don't know anything about the boxes."

[...]

Michael is believed to be the person identified in special counsel Jack Smith's indictment as "Trump Employee 2," described in the indictment as someone who handled many of Trump's White House-era boxes at Mar-a-Lago and who provided Trump with photos of those boxes that were then included in the indictment.

[...]

Speaking to federal investigators, Michael recounted how, by late 2021, as many as 90 boxes of materials from Trump's time as president were moved into a basement storage room at Mar-a-Lago, and how -- as pressure from the National Archives mounted -- she and Trump aide Walt Nauta would bring boxes to Trump's residence for him to review.

She knew a hell of a lot about the boxes.

In 2018, Michael became Trump's executive assistant in the White House, and she continued to work for him when Trump left office. But she resigned last year, in the wake of Trump's alleged refusal to comply with the federal requests and the FBI's subsequent search of Mar-a-Lago.

[...]

According to what she told investigators, around the same time that the National Archives found nearly 200 classified documents in the 15 boxes [Trump originally turned over to the National Archives] and referred the matter to the FBI, Trump began to seem more reluctant to cooperate with the agency, and he asked Michael to help spread a message that no more boxes existed, sources said she recounted.

Molly is not going to jail for the Orange Menace.

Michael even pointed out to him that many people, including maintenance workers, knew otherwise because they had all seen that there were many more than 15 boxes, sources said she told investigators.

[...]

Michael said she believed early on that claims of no more boxes from Trump were "easily" disproven, and she believed Trump knew they were false because he knew the contents of those boxes better than anyone else -- and because he had previously seen a photograph of the storage room with all 90 or so boxes in it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09/19/2023:

Goose and gander

Already have done, Jim.  It's against the law.  And here's just the most recent case:

A former intelligence analyst with the FBI’s Kansas City division has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for holding on to classified national defense-related documents at her residence.

[...]

Kendra Kingsbury “improperly removed and willfully retained” some 386 classified documents, some of which “contained extremely sensitive national defense information,” at her home in Kansas over the course of her more than 12-year FBI tenure.

[...]

She has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.

[...]

The Kansas City Star reported that Kingsbury stored some of the documents in her bathroom.

[...]

Among the materials were reportedly documents classified at the “SECRET” level, including details on government counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber efforts, as well as specific investigations and “sensitive human-source operations.”

Kingsbury was also alleged to have held on to SECRET-level documents from another government agency that included information about al Qaeda members and a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden.

  The Hill

That seems to be the place these days.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:16 pm:  LOL (think Hunter Biden)

Damage assessment

Because of the remarkably sensitive nature of the documents the former president retained, and the shockingly insecure locations where they were held and transported (“in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”), there are also potentially grave implications for U.S. national security. It is those national security implications, as evidenced in particular by the 31 counts lodged under the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793(e)), which we briefly lay out here.

[...]

The indictment states that these documents impact the equities of several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

[...]

Given the indictment lists only 31 of the classified documents Trump retained, we don’t know whether this is just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, some of the others may very well have been far too sensitive to use in a public trial.

  Just Security

Aside from that, there are still documents unaccounted for. Not to mention whether our allies will feel safe to share their intel with us.

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Yes, he always knew

While the documents case against Trump does not hinge on whether or not they were classified, a tape in the possession of the special prosecutor gives the lie to Trump's claims he had declassified everything simply by taking and thinking about them.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE :

In case you were wondering

Still working on the Biden case, apparently.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"Stolen documents" leak

Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.

The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House.

[...]

Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records.

[...]

Special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department investigation into Trump, has focused on the meeting as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of national security secrets.

[...]

The episode has generated enough interest for investigators to have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, one of the highest-ranking Trump-era national security officials, about the incident.

[...]

[A] July 2021 meeting was held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as aides employed by the former president, including communications specialist Margo Martin. The attendees, sources said, did not have security clearances that would allow them access to classified information. Meadows didn’t attend the meeting, sources said.

[...]

The meeting [...] happened shortly after The New Yorker published a story by Susan Glasser detailing how, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Milley instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump issued no illegal orders and that he be informed if there was any concern. The story infuriated Trump.

[...]

On the recording and in response to the story, Trump brings up the document, which he says came from Milley. Trump told those in the room that if he could show it to people, it would undermine what Milley was saying, the sources said.

  CNN

I don't know who leaked this information, but the document and the meeting story were included in the Grand Jury hearings.

Trump and the FBI

The way conservatives tell it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a hive of anti-Trump villainy, filled with agents looking for any excuse to hound the former president with investigative witch hunts. But the thing to understand about Donald Trump’s legal troubles is that they exist not because federal agents are out to get him, but despite the fact that the FBI is full of Trump supporters who would really like to leave him alone.

  The Atlantic

The reason that's a surprise is because Trump talks that "hive of villainy" shit about the FBI.  

FBI investigators clashed with federal prosecutors over the decision to search the former president’s residence, where highly classified documents were found despite Trump’s insistence that he had none.

“Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June,” the Post reported, adding that FBI agents were “simply afraid” and “worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers.”

I've always heard that the New York office of the FBI is full of MAGA supporters. I don't have any proof, of course, but it does seem likely since law enforcement people tend toward conservative politics.

A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops.

[...]

As one agent told the reporter Spencer Ackerman in 2016, “The FBI is Trumpland.”

[...]

There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.

[...]

The FBI did not exhibit this worry in 2016, when it publicly announced that it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents, an announcement that, even with all the other mistakes her campaign made, likely cost Clinton the election. That decision was made in part because then-Director James Comey feared that pro-Trump FBI agents would leak the details if The federal investigation into the Trump campaign, by contrast, was properly kept confidential until after the election. he did not announce them publicly.

[...]

The irony of all Trump’s legal problems, however, is that the FBI desperately wants to leave him alone—if only he would let them.

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year.

[...]

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property.

[...]

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute.

[...]

Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given its extraordinary sensitivity.

[...]

Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.

[...]

The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved.

[...]

On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.

[...]

The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government.

  WaPo

Snowflakes.

The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans.

[...]

Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security.

[...]

Prosecutors in the Justice Department’s national security division needed to answer two immediate questions: Was national security damaged by classified records being kept at Trump’s Florida club, and were any more sensitive records still in Trump’s possession?

[...]

Prosecutors and FBI agents were set on a collision course in April, when Trump through his lawyers tried to block the FBI from reviewing the classified records the Archives found. That set off alarm bells for prosecutors because it signaled he might be seeking to hide something.

And I don't expect we'll ever know whether that was true, but it sure seems the most likely conclusion.

Had the criminal investigation been closed in June, as some FBI field agents discussed, legal experts said it’s unlikely agents would have yet recovered the items found in the FBI’s raid of Trump’s residence.

The article describes a "heated" meeting during which prosecutors and FBI officials argued about whether a "raid" on Mar-A-Lago was warranted. FBI officials wanted to consult with Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran, to arrange a consensual search. Prosecutors believed Trump could not be trusted, and notifying his attorney could lead to him further hiding - or using - national secrets.  

Evan Corcoran was the one who instructed flunky attorney Christina Bobb to sign the document saying everything was turned over rather than signing it himself.  I don't know about you, but that seems a little suspicious to me.

Prosecutors remained somewhat on guard until the day of the raid, as they continued to hear rumblings of dissent from the Washington field office, according to three people familiar with the case. Some of the people said prosecutors heard some FBI agents wanted to call Corcoran once they arrived at Mar-a-Lago and wait for him to fly down to join them in the search; prosecutors said that would not work.

[...]

Just days before the scheduled search, prosecutors got a request from FBI headquarters to put off the search for another day, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI told prosecutors the bureau planned to announce big news that week — charges against an Iranian for plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton — and did not want the impact of that case to be overshadowed or complicated by media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid. It is common for the Justice Department and FBI to fine-tune the timing of certain actions or announcements to avoid one law enforcement priority competing with another. But prosecutors, fatigued by months of fighting with agents in the FBI’s field office, wanted no delay, no matter the reason.

"Big news" that someone plotted to assassinate John Bolton. Right. THAT couldn't wait.

FBI agents found ways to make the search less confrontational than it otherwise could have been, according to people familiar with the investigation: The search would take place when Trump was in New York and not in Palm Beach; the Secret Service would receive a heads-up a few hours before FBI agents arrived to avoid any law enforcement conflict; and agents would wear white polo shirts and khakis to cut a lower profile than if they wore their traditional blue jackets with FBI insignia.

[...]

Some [of the more than 100 recovered] documents were classified at such a restricted level that seasoned national security investigators lacked the proper authorization to look at them, leading to consternation on the prosecution team. They involved highly restricted “special access programs” that require Cabinet-level sign-off even for officials with top-secret clearances to review. The documents described Iran’s missile program and records related to highly sensitive intelligence aimed at China.

Remember, Trump's lawyer had already certified that all such documents had been returned (without signing the cert himself). Also, the other disturbing fact is that the Trump family ever had access to these national security secrets in the first place. They now have either personal knowledge of them, or possibly even copies, to say nothing of information they may have already sold or disseminated.

It's possible Trump only knew of things in his possession that he wanted to keep for bragging or blackmailing rights, and the rest were things that were inadvertently carelessly handled. But that seems much less likely when we learn that an aide working for Trump's Save America PAC still had some classified documents on a thumb drive and computer. No telling where THOSE got to.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 07:09 am:

When can they stop searching Trump properties?

“The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump,” CNN reports.

“Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided.”

“People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, including having its contents uploaded to the cloud, emailed to a Trump employee, and moved to an offsite location before finally ending up back at a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier.”

  Political Wire

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Looks like Smith is going for it

[Trump attorney Evan] Corcoran recently appeared before a grand jury as part of the classified documents search and asserted attorney-client privilege to refuse to answer certain questions.

[...]

Prosecutors allegedly want Corcoran to answer more questions that he was previously able to avoid while using attorney-client privilege—an absolute protected privilege which keeps legal communications between a lawyer and their client confidential.

However, attorney-client privilege is voided under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, meaning it cannot be cited if a lawyer and his client are allegedly attempting to cover up or engage in a crime.

[...]

Trump and his lawyers are accused of attempting to hinder the federal attempt to retrieve the sensitive materials removed from the White House in January 2021.

[...]

Smith, who is also heading the criminal probe into the January 6 riot and the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, recently subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence to testify under oath about the insurrection.

Pence said he will fight the special counsel subpoena, arguing that his role as president of the Senate on January 6, 2021, offers him protection from testifying under the Constitution's "speech or debate clause."

  Newsweek

"Beggars belief" is one way to put it

Not the way I would put it.

This whole thing is nuts.  I think they're just trying to see what people will swallow.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's document trouble update

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more materials with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

[...]

The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done.

[...]

A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.

  CNN

UPDATE 02/12/2023:

Donald Trump’s lawyers turned over an empty manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” after the US justice department issued a subpoena for its surrender once prosecutors became aware that it was located inside the private quarters of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The previously unreported subpoena was issued last month, the sources said, as the recently appointed special counsel escalates the inquiry into Trump’s possible unauthorized retention of national security materials and obstruction of justice.

[...]

The folder is understood to have not been initially returned because the lawyers thought “Classified Evening Briefing” did not make it classified, nor is it a formal classification marking.

  Guardian

I don't know. The word "classified" seems to speak for itself. But maybe that's just me.

The backstory the justice department was told about the folder was that Trump would sometimes ask to keep the envelopes, featuring only the “Classified Evening Briefings” in red lettering, as keepsakes after briefings were delivered, one of the sources said.

A reminder of how important he was.

Around the same time that Trump’s lawyers turned over the empty folder – earlier reported by CNN - they also returned in December a box of presidential schedules at Mar-a-Lago of which a couple were marked as classified, and in January, a laptop on to which the contents of the box had been scanned last year by a junior aide.

The mishandling of those materials appears to have been inadvertent.

Whatever.

The junior Trump aide, according to what one of the sources said, was apparently instructed to upload the documents by top Trump aide Molly Michael to create a repository of what Trump was doing while in office and was apparently careless in scanning them on to her work laptop.

Always blame a flunky.

When the Trump legal team told the justice department about the uploads, federal prosecutors demanded the laptop and its password, warning that they would otherwise move to obtain a grand jury subpoena summoning the junior aide to Washington to grant them access to the computer.

To avoid a subpoena, the Trump legal team agreed to turn over the laptop in its entirety last month, though they did not allow federal prosecutors to collect it from Mar-a-Lago.

[...]

“This is nothing more than a politically-motivated witch-hunt against President Trump,” a spokesman for Trump said in a statement. “The weaponized Department of Injustice has shown no regard for common decency and key rules that govern the legal system.”

That sounds like something Trump would say. Department of Injustice. And could we have an explication of what "key rules" govern the legal system that the DOJ is disregarding?

Another classified doc at Pence's house

Nothing to be worried about.  Just keeping you updated.

Federal investigators found one additional document with classified markings during a search of former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home on Friday.

The Justice Department conducted a search of Pence’s home roughly three weeks after his attorney notified the National Archives that they had discovered about a dozen documents with classified markings there. The search was conducted in cooperation with Pence’s team, and it lasted roughly five hours.

Devin O’Malley, a Pence adviser, said investigators removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel.”

“The vice president has directed his legal team to continue its cooperation with appropriate authorities and to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter,” O’Malley said in a statement.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Elie Mystal

And his argument is unassailable.

More "misplaced" classfiied documents

I've been hearing having classified documents isn't uncommon.

A lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

[...]

Pence asked his lawyer with experience handling classified material to conduct the search of his home out of an abundance of caution.

[...]

The discovery comes after Pence has repeatedly said he did not have any classified documents in his possession.

  CNN

This is actually absurd. The USG classifies way too many documents for no - or stupid (including fear of embarrassment) - reasons. But there's no reason on earth classified documents should end up in private possession. If you don't know how to set up a system, ask a librarian.

The vice president’s residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington has a secure facility for handling classified material along with other security, and it would be common for classified documents to be there for the vice president to review.

[...]

Some of the boxes at Pence’s Indiana home were packed up from the vice president’s residence, while some came from the White House in the final days of the Trump administration, which included last-minute things that did not go through the process the rest of Pence’s documents did.

[...]

Pence’s lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, the sources said. In turn, the Archives informed the Justice Department.

A lawyer for Pence told CNN that the FBI requested to pick up the documents with classified markings that evening, and Pence agreed.

[...]

On Monday, Pence’s legal team drove the boxes back to Washington, DC, and handed them over to the Archives to review the rest of the material for compliance with the Presidential Records Act.

[...]

The classified material was stored in boxes that first went to Pence’s temporary home in Virginia before they were moved to Indiana, according to the sources. The boxes were not in a secure area, but they were taped up and were not believed to have been opened since they were packed, according to Pence’s attorney. Once the classified documents were discovered, the sources said they were placed inside a safe located in the house.

[...]

“The bottom line is I don’t know how this happened, we need to get to the bottom of it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. “I don’t believe for a minute that Mike Pence is trying to intentionally compromise national security. But clearly we’ve got a problem here.”

Lindsey has a fine grasp of the obvious.

And maybe go through your papers if you've ever been anywhere near classified docs in your career.  (Actually, that's probably what's happening and why Mike Pence's lawyer found some.)

And, like Biden, Pence condemned the man before him for mishandling classified docs...

You might think Pence, who boasts about his Christian bona fides, would be more conversant with Biblical admonitions against casting stones and picking motes out of eyes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 04:11 pm:  And Congressman Donalds only got two days to be self-righteous.  

That, and this, are still up on his Twitter account.  Somebody should let him know.

No comment yet on Pence's "violation of the espionage act."

UPDATE 01/25/2023:

Does that mean some people should be fired?

Perhaps they do, but unless someone credible comes foward to claim knowledge of it, I don't see this happening.

UPDATE 01/25/2023:  Still no comments on Donalds' Twitter account about Mike Pence's classified document story.

Another Trump "truth" for the prosecutor's files

I really wish he had explained what Joe did that he didn't do.  Maybe with time, he will.

Also, he didn't "save hundreds of them."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Really bad, Joe

The White House lawyer leading the response to the classified documents found at President Biden's home and office said on Saturday that five more pages of classified material had been found in Biden's Wilmington residence.

[...]

"We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake," according to [Biden lawyers'] statement.

  NPR

So, Hunter was in that house. If any of those documents have anything to do with China, or anything else Hunter was involved with, the fireworks are going to be incredible. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked to find out Joe did unethical things in order to help his troubled/wayward son succeed in life, myself.

When it confirmed the first discovery in the D.C. office, there was no mention of the second batch recovered in Delaware. It was only after news reports that revealed the later discovery did the White House acknowledge it.

[...]

On Thursday, after reports [of that second batch of] documents were discovered at his Delaware garage, Biden turned defensive when pressed by a reporter. "My Corvette's in a locked garage. OK? So it's not like they're sitting out in the street," he said.

Really, really wrong tack to take, Joe.

Joe's natural self-righteousness and temper are not going to serve him well in the next two years of a House Republican onslaught.  There may be a silver lining if it encourages a Democrat to (hopefully successfully) primary Joe in '24.

On Friday, Republican House Judiciary members sent a letter to the attorney general announcing their inquiry into the handling of the documents and the appointment of Hur. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., demanded "all documents and communications" between the DOJ, FBI and White House related to the "mishandling of the classified documents" and the appointment of the special counsel.

And now, another finding Saturday morning.

Expect this to be one of the articles of impeachment the Republicans in the House are going to file against Biden.   

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 01/21/2023:  More.

As he should

Turns out the second batch of classified documents was found in Biden's Wilmington, Connecticut, garage.  I assume Trumpland has called for Biden's house to be raided.

Special counsel Robert Hur is a Trump appointee.  Best practice.  It won't make this whole shitshow better, but it avoids making it worse.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  As expected..but dumber.

UPDATE:  Oh, wait...

The appointment comes hours after the White House counsel’s office said in a statement that Biden’s aides located documents with classified markings at two locations inside his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The documents were located in a storage area in Biden’s garage and an adjacent room, the statement reads. Biden frequently spends weekends at the home, located in a wealthy, wooded enclave on a lake.

  CNN

Two locations at the Biden residence.

Speaking Thursday, Biden said the documents were in a “locked garage” and that he was cooperating fully with the Department of Justice.

“It’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” he insisted when a reported asked why he was storing classified material next to a sports car.

Fucking lame, Joe. Trump could have said the same thing.

The president said he was going “to get a chance to speak on all of this, God willing, soon.”

The only thing he better say is he's so sorry that in fact, he won't be running for president in 2024, because this was as irresponsible as he claimed Trump was.

By bringing on a special counsel, Garland is insulating himself from the politically sensitive case, though he’ll still get the final say on whether to bring any charges. When that decision comes, no matter the outcome, it will surely become a major flashpoint in the 2024 presidential race.

No fucking kidding.

CNN previously reported that the initial batch discovered when Biden’s personal attorneys were packing files at his former private office contained 10 classified documents, including US intelligence materials and briefing memos about Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.

Some of the classified documents were “top secret,” the highest level. They were found in three or four boxes that also contained unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act, CNN has reported.

Classified records are supposed to be stored in secure locations. And under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives when an administration ends.

[...]

Since 2015, there have been near-constant FBI probes into presidents and major candidates: Hillary Clinton’s emails; Trump’s ties to Russia; his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified materials; and now Biden’s handling of classified files.

We are circling the drain of international standing.

UPDATE:

The appearance is of dumbshittery.  And of a belief that "the base" is dumb (which, to be fair, it is).  Both Special Counsel Hur AND FBI director Wray were Trump appointees.

Oh, swell

Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration.

[...]

The White House did not return a request for comment.

  MSN

I bet not. They're going to need a huddle.  Especially if the "separate" location was his house.

Biden aides have been sifting through documents stored at locations beyond his former Washington office to determine if there are any other classified documents that need to be turned over to the National Archives and reviewed by the Justice Department, the person familiar with the matter said.

Anybody but me think they ought to have done that at the end of the Obama administration? At the latest.  

A second good opportunity would have been BEFORE he chimed in on criticizing Trump for holding classified documents.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Earlier on Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sparred with reporters over the discovery of the first batch of documents, avoiding answering questions on why the administration didn’t inform the public sooner when attorneys for Biden made the discovery on Nov. 2, just six days ahead of crucial midterm elections.

  The Hill

I think that question answers itself!