Right now, the US Justice Department is looking into both President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump for holding on to classified documents.
This week, the news broke that classified government documents were uncovered at Mr Biden’s Delaware home and at an office he used in Washington.
The documents are not from his term as president, but from when he was vice-president in the Obama administration.
If you look solely at the headlines, Mr Biden’s situation seems very similar to that of his predecessor, Mr Trump.
Last year, classified documents were also found at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
While both instances are being scrutinised, there are a few differences that need to be acknowledged.
The amount of documents Biden and Trump had
A “small number” of classified documents were recovered from the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington.
Mr Biden’s attorneys alerted the White House council’s office immediately after the files were discovered, and then the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) were notified.
The small number of documents had a “classified” marking and were initially found in November last year.
Richard Sauber, Mr Biden’s personal counsel, said the President’s attorneys were co-operating with both NARA and the Department of Justice.
CBS News reported that roughly 10 documents were found at the office that date back to Mr Biden’s time as vice-president.
Another “small batch” of documents was found at the President’s home in Delaware.
In May 2021, months after Mr Trump left the White House, NARA reached out to the former president’s lawyers, notifying them records had not been turned over.
In January 2022, 15 boxes of presidential records were retrieved from Mr Trump’s estate.
According to Reuters, some of those documents were “marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials”.
In August, the FBI conducted a search of Mr Trump’s property. Some of the files were marked as Top Secret and Secret.
It was revealed in September that the FBI uncovered 11,000 government documents and photographs during the search at Mr Trump’s property.
How did Trump and Biden respond?
Mr Biden said he was surprised to learn classified documents were found at the office in Washington.
Earlier this week, he told reporters he took classified documents very seriously and said he did not know what was in the documents.
“We are co-operating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday.
Mr Biden insisted that his team “did what they should have done” by immediately notifying NARA.
At the White House on Thursday, Mr Biden told reporters he was co-operating with the Justice Department in the investigation.
On the other hand, Mr Trump didn’t co-operate.
“Unlike Trump, who spent nearly 18 months delaying, obfuscating and arguably obstructing efforts by the federal government to recover from Mar-a-Lago all of the documents with classification markings, Biden’s team appears to have played by the book,”
Despite numerous requests by the NARA, Mr Trump did not immediately or willingly turn over the documents when he was initially requested to do so by NARA.
Investigators attempted to get Mr Trump to return any remaining classified records, through a grand jury subpoena and a visit to his Mar-a-Lago estate.
On that visit, one of the former president’s advisors returned a few additional classified records and claimed there were no others at the residence.
However, the FBI suspected possible obstruction of justice and obtained court approval to search his home in August, where agents found thousands of records.
Tweet from @IanSams46
What is happening now?
US Attorney-General Merrick Garland has named a special counsel to investigate whether Mr Biden improperly handled sensitive government documents.
The probe into Mr Trump’s issue is ongoing.
The inquiry into Mr Biden’s documents will be led by Robert Hur, who served as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland under Mr Trump.
Mr Hur will act as a quasi-independent prosecutor to determine whether classified records stemming from Mr Biden’s time as vice-president had been improperly stored at his residence and at the think tank.
Mr Garland said Mr Hur would examine “whether any person or entity violated the law”.
-with AAP
