Biden Does Not Get a Free Pass
By Ed Kociela
We have heard a lot from Democrats about how nobody is above the law, whether they are a sitting president, a former president, or Joe Sixpack sucking back brews at the Dew Drop Inn.
That’s why the best thing they can do right now is shut up and take their lumps as a Special Counsel sets up to investigate President Joe Biden, who, it was discovered, had some classified documents stashed in rather unclassified settings.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere you know that former President Donald Trump is being investigated for the same offense.
There are some differences.
While Trump was found to have hundreds of classified documents scattered around his archives Biden had, at least as of now, far fewer, which the Democrats are quick to point out.
Doesn’t matter, though. The law does not distinguish whether it was one or 1,000 documents.
The argument has also been mad that unlike Trump, Biden and his team have been extremely cooperative. But, shouldn’t we expect civil behavior from leaders, past, present, or future?
We may never know why or how Trump and Biden ended up with classified documents in their possession in violation of the law. What matters is that they did.
Is it believable that the documents found in Biden’s possession could have been accidentally mixed in with other materials?
Possibly, but the thing is that when handling classified documents there are certain procedures one must follow, including a paper trail of who has what, how many copies of the document exist, where they are stored, and the purpose of why they are being shared. Intelligence agencies are fairly strict about this because, often, human lives are at stake because a lot of classified papers come from covert sources – spies, agents, special technology that allows us to observe things from deep in space even. All of that can be jeopardized if the other guys find out what we have learned and could result in lost lives.
While I am happy that Biden and his team have been so cooperative in this investigation thus far, it is still extremely disappointing and there must be accountability. We cannot be sure about how forthcoming Team Biden has been until all of the information is gathered and assessed. If, indeed, they have all been as cooperative as we are being led to believe, kudos. It gives more credibility to the idea of accidentally integrating some classified documents with others. While it might help as far as any penalties are concerned, it is still, as Biden said when Trump’s cache of documents were found, irresponsible.
Politically, this is not good news for Biden.
Just when it appeared he was turning a corner in the polls, just when things started to look good for a second run at the White House, he gets caught with his trousers around his ankles, not a good look for an 80-year-old man, or, quite frankly, from a guy who asked us to trust him to bring back a degree of normalcy to the White House. And, while there is no love lost from my corner when it comes to Trump, my good conscious does not allow me to give Biden a pass just because he is a Democrat. Fairness and honesty dictate that what’s good or Trump legally is good for Biden.
It’s a pity, you know, that we have to spend our time looking into such scandals, from Trump to Biden to this newcomer to the lying game, George Santos who is on par with the former president when it comes to dishing whoppers. And, it was equally disappointing to tune in the Sunday news programs and listen to the hair splitting among Democrats who were trying their best to let the American people know how different the cases were against Biden and Trump. It’s kind of like the bank robber who got away with only $1,000 being compared with the guy who stuck them up for $10,000. It is still bank robbery and this is still mishandling classified documents. Does the number of documents diminish the culpability? I don’t think so. And, while I would like to believe there was no malicious intent in Biden clinging to documents he received as vice president, how can we be sure? We cannot. That other guy? Who knows?
It is embarrassing, really.
Our system is not broken. It works just fine. The people we have elected to run it, however, are a different matter and whether you subscribe to the politics of Bernie Sanders or Ron DeSantis makes no difference at this point. The government has been corrupted by a group of greedy, self-serving thieves whose thirst for power has warped the beauty of a pretty good freedom-loving nation.
Look, we can have our squabbles about if or how much to raise the debt ceiling. That is a valid debate. We can square off when it comes to solving our economic issues. There is more than one way to approach that mess. We can duke it out over health care and the disgusting control Big Pharma has over us. We all know we can use some help with that.
But, we do nothing to repair the damage being done by the witless partisanship, where people look to see if there is an “R” or “D” behind somebody’s name instead of listening to what they have to say.
Biden’s classified document crisis will do nothing but exacerbate that problem as half of the voters condemn him because he is a Democrat and the others embrace him and cut him some slack. The same goes for Trump who, in the grander scheme, actually has much larger legal worries going on in Georgia and New York.
But, don’t buy the spin.
Joe Biden did not simply stub his toe on a rock in the middle of the road with this classified document scandal.
He tripped over a boulder and took a hell of a tumble.
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