Republicans cry foul over Biden classified document case, but Democrats scoff at Trump comparison
Republicans complain of double standard, but volume of documents, response to discovery differ greatly
The volume of classified documents is vastly different, the circumstances of discovery worlds apart.
But the revelation that lawyers for U.S. President Joe Biden have located what the White House says is a "small number" of classified documents in a locked closet is an unexpected wrinkle for a Justice Department already investigating Donald Trump over the retention of top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.
Despite abundant factual and legal differences in the situations, Trump seized on the news in hopes of neutralizing his own vulnerability — at least in the court of public opinion.
"Certainly it gives him a talking point. Not that needing something to be true has ever stopped him before," said Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist-turned-Trump critic who worked for Jeb Bush's 2016 campaign.
Already, the top Republican on the House's intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, has requested a damage assessment of the classified documents from the director of national intelligence. Colleague Jim Jordan, now leading the House's judiciary committee, was among those complaining of a "double standard" in the handling of the cases.
WATCH | Number of documents may be small, but finding still a headache for Biden:
Meanwhile, the White House is now trying to draw a distinction between the Mar-a-Lago case and the discovery of classified records in the Washington office space of Biden's former institute.
A counsel to the president, Richard Sauber, said that "a small number of documents with classified markings" from the Obama-Biden administration were found on Nov. 2 by the president's personal lawyers as they packed files in a locked closet to vacate space at the Penn Biden Center.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota:
President Biden's failure to properly protect classified documents in a secure facility should be met with the same level of attention from the Department of Justice and the media as other recent cases involving the mishandling of classified documents.
—@SenatorRoundsThe statement said the White House contacted the Archives that day, that the Archives took possession of the documents the next morning and that there had been no prior request for the records by the Archives — drawing an apparent contrast with how the Trump team handled Archives requests.
Key questions remain, including the content and exact number of the Biden records, how they arrived at the centre, why they stayed there, and why the administration waited more than two months to acknowledge their discovery.
Republican calls for special counsel
The Biden development is unlikely to affect the Justice Department's decision-making with regard to charging Trump, and the probes are being handled by separate teams.
The Mar-a-Lago investigation is being handled by a special counsel, while the Justice Department assigned the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, a Trump administration holdover, to scrutinize the Biden matter. Sen. Josh Hawley is among the Republicans calling for a special counsel to oversee the Biden case.
It's all unfolding as Republicans have taken control of the House, with plans to target the department with complaints of politicized law enforcement and to portray Biden as corrupt though probes into his son Hunter's international business dealings.
"I don't think that it impacts Trump's legal calculus at all, but it certainly does impact the political narrative going forward," said Jay Town, who served as U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Alabama during the Trump administration.
There are significant differences between the Trump and Biden situations, including the gravity of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the Mar-a-Lago matter.
The search of Trump's property was the culmination of months of back-and-forth between government officials and Trump representatives over the retention of presidential records.
Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, chair of Senate judiciary committee:
I applaud POTUS & AG for their professional, nonpartisan handling of this situation. <br>Unlike Trump, who allegedly obstructed efforts to recover hundreds of classified docs, the handful of classified docs reportedly found at Biden Center were immediately sent to Natl Archives. <a href="https://t.co/l4n2rum6AM">https://t.co/l4n2rum6AM</a>
—@SenatorDurbinThe National Archives and Records Administration obtained 15 boxes from the Palm Beach, Florida, property last January, and contacted the FBI after discovering classified records. But Trump representatives for months resisted requests by the Archives to return all documents.
Even after Justice Department officials last spring issued a subpoena for classified records and visited Mar-a-Lago, associates of the former president failed to provide the entire batch of documents, officials say.
Series of Trump misrepresentations: analyst
FBI agents returned to Trump's estate in August with a warrant signed by a federal judge that showed they were investigating crimes including the willful retention of national defence information and efforts to obstruct the probe. They say they located documents with classification markings in a storage room and office desk drawer and in total have recovered roughly 300 such records from the property.
"He hid the documents, denied they were even there, his attorneys misrepresented what was there," Larry Sabato, director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told CBC's Katie Simpson. "It's pretty clear they never would have gotten the documents back had they not sent the FBI in."
It remains unclear whether Trump or anyone else might be charged, or when a decision will be made.
WATCH | The Fifth Estate: The Trump Files:
With files from CBC News