Biden document scandal

[Defiant]

I can't wait to hear that Jimmy Carter has been rolling his joints in classified docs for 40 years.

Former President Jimmy Carter found classified materials at his home in Plains, Georgia, on at least one occasion and returned them to the National Archives, according to the same person who spoke of regular occurrences of mishandled documents. The person did not provide details on the timing of the discovery.

An aide to the Carter Center provided no details when asked about that account of Carter discovering documents at his home after leaving office in 1981. It’s notable that Carter signed the Presidential Records Act in 1978 but it did not apply to records of his administration, taking effect years later when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Before Reagan, presidential records were generally considered the private property of the president individually. Nonetheless, Carter invited federal archivists to assist his White House in organizing his records in preparation for their eventual repository at his presidential library in Georgia.

Classified records pose conundrum stretching back to Carter

[Blackhawk]

Like I said in one of these threads, if you were to dig, you'd find out that this is completely normal. Unfortunately, it's mostly just created noise to obscure Trump, despite what he did being completely different.

[Isgrimnur]

Biden won’t be charged in classified docs case; special counsel cites instances of ‘poor memory’

Special counsel Robert Hur has declined to prosecute President Joe Biden for his handling of classified documents but said in a report released Thursday that Biden’s practices “present serious risks to national security” and added that part of the reason he wouldn't charge Biden was that the president could portray himself as an "elderly man with a poor memory" who would be sympathetic to a jury.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report said, but added that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The report from Hur — who previously appointed by former President Donald Trump as one of the country's top federal prosecutors — also made clear the "material distinctions" between a theoretical case against Biden and the pending case against Trump for his handling of classified documents, noting the "serious aggravating facts" in Trump's case.

[LawBeefaroni]

That's the most backhanded declination to prosecute I remember seeing.

"Good luck in the elections, you feeble, senile, old man!"

[Exodor]

That's the most backhanded declination to prosecute I remember seeing.

"Good luck in the elections, you feeble, senile, old man!"

Apparently the special prosecutor is a Federalist Society-approved Trump appointee. His bias is showing.

[waitingtoconnect]

What a totally ridiculous report. Put in facts and leave out your opinion. And age should be no barrier to prosecution. And if there is compelling evidence take it to a grand jury. It should be up to a grand jury to decide if the evidence is compelling enough beyond a reasonable doubt.

For regular folks if there had been evidence we had "wilfully retained and disseminated" classified material we'd be pre-judged a national security risk and under the many post-2001 antiterrorism acts be held in solitary in federal prison with no access to a lawyer.

I still despair we can't find actual candidates for this upcoming election that are younger than 60 years old.

Anyway the media left and right are painting this as equivalent to what Trump did; some on the left as they think Biden is too old and well this is red meat for Fox and co.

[Blackhawk]

The justification felt more like him saying that Biden would just beat any charges by claiming senility. I'm guessing, though, that someone behind the scenes urged him not to prosecute, and he simply figured out a justification.

[waitingtoconnect]

Well everyone except MSNBC are pillorying him. Looking at more details about this I’ve got to say I have real concerns of Biden is still up to the job of president. It’s not enough to get me to choose trump over Biden but I’ve got real concerns especially given all his gaffes this week.

His attempted response gives me even more concerns. Even the guardian has expressed concern and they never do.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... use-memory

Personally I’m shocked there is no grand jury on this case. Yes it’s not as bad as trumps behaviour but I’m tired having held clearances of politicians and their acolytes not being held to account.

Similarly I have identical concerns about trump. He can’t tell the difference between Nikki Haley and Nancy pelosi.

Clearly we need upper age limits on the presidency.

[LordMortis]

I am amazed at how much media is a dog with a chewtoy on this, not because it doesn't deserve the focus (it does), but because with TFG they constantly looked the other way when he was in office giving only an abbreviated news cycle to "Person, woman, man, camera, TV" in some news outlets. I heard about Biden all day in the extremely limited news exposure I had and it's been featured 4 times on CNBC this morning in the 90 minutes I've been up. And they've been talking about his acuity in general constantly.

Clearly we need upper age limits on the presidency.

Sort of. We need to hold the parties that don't hold their candidates to account but we don't. Biden should be the bigger man and step aside but he won't and we know TFG won't concede until he dies. How do we hold parties account? The GOP has shown over a lifetime, they won't be held to account and the Democrats haven't learned a damned thing, even Obama won and Hillary lost to TFG, which is clearly a symptom of dissatisfaction with party line.

Edit: Featured 5 times in 100 minutes!!!! And they've been increasingly attacking Harris for this.

Edit: mentioned again at the top of the hour so it can be featured again this hour at least once... And 0715 mentioned teaser for hourly feature again... 0730 teaser... 0745 teaser... And 0750 for hourly feature....

[Unagi]

even Obama won and Hillary lost to TFG, which is clearly a symptom of dissatisfaction with party line.

Or just racism and misogyny coming to fruition?

[LordMortis]

I don't doubt it contributes. Though Obama winning was an expression of the opposite as far as the democratic party goes even if I don't doubt racism was a factor he outpaced. And he beat Hillary who was the party line and Hillary again as the party line lost to TFG.

[Hyena]

Well everyone except MSNBC are pillorying him. Looking at more details about this I’ve got to say I have real concerns of Biden is still up to the job of president. It’s not enough to get me to choose trump over Biden but I’ve got real concerns especially given all his gaffes this week.

His attempted response gives me even more concerns. Even the guardian has expressed concern and they never do.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... use-memory

Personally I’m shocked there is no grand jury on this case. Yes it’s not as bad as trumps behaviour but I’m tired having held clearances of politicians and their acolytes not being held to account.

Similarly I have identical concerns about trump. He can’t tell the difference between Nikki Haley and Nancy pelosi.

Clearly we need upper age limits on the presidency.

Not only this, but he thinks he beat Obama and that if we aren't careful with the Russian thing, we could end up in World War II. His ramblings and childish insults prove that he's no better...in fact it makes him worse because he's already a bitter little man.

An addled, bitter little man could spell destruction.

[Unagi]

Obama slipped in under the GOP radar and beat them completely on his merits, IMO.

That event translated to Obama being "the mistake that White America must never allow to happen again."

Hilary was the wife of Bill Clinton. She didn't have the decency to disappear after her husband's affair.

Enemy Number One.

[waitingtoconnect]

Yes if only white people voted trump would win handsomely.



And interestingly if only votes cast on election day were counted and early voting and mail in was discounted Trump would win almost every single state.

[Kraken]

Clearly, we need to restrict voting to young single urban/suburban women with college degrees.

[Unagi]

And interestingly if only votes cast on election day were counted and early voting and mail in was discounted Trump would win almost every single state.

I think you mean Eelection day. My favorite day.

[Kurth]

And interestingly if only votes cast on election day were counted and early voting and mail in was discounted Trump would win almost every single state.

I think you mean Eelection day. My favorite day.

I wasn't in a laughing mood after watching the Chiefs win another Superbowl tonight, but this had me chuckling.

Very nice.

[Unagi]

And just to be clear, the graphic in the link that waitingtoconnect shared, had labeled the "Election Day" votes as "Eelection Day" votes.

and,

Spoiler:

[milo]

The justification felt more like him saying that Biden would just beat any charges by claiming senility. I'm guessing, though, that someone behind the scenes urged him not to prosecute, and he simply figured out a justification.

The report starts by saying they found evidence of willful retention. That means they found documents containing classified information that did not appear to be planted by someone else. This is hardly news, as Biden reported the documents himself. In most cases, the documents were not marked with classification levels. They were his own diaries, which included notes taken during meetings that were classified. There is no evidence that he shared classified information from those documents with anyone (he did discuss the unclassified contents of the documents in preparing his book).

But willful retention is not the only element of a crime. There also has to be intent. If you pick up a stack of documents after a meeting and carry them to your garage, and one of the documents is later discovered to be classified, you have willfully retained it. But you did not do so with intent, and did not commit a crime, provided that you report and return the document when it is discovered.

Hur's report makes clear that they did not find any unequivocal evidence of intent, and that there are plausible innocent explanations for the presence of the documents in Biden's garage. If that evidence were presented in court, the case wouldn't even go to a jury. It would be dismissed for failing to meet the burden of proof.