RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/columns/davidhasanyi/2023/01/13/on-classified-documents-joe-biden-is-out-of-excuses-n1661357

Every president probably stashes away classified documents. The chances of any president being successfully prosecuted for pilfering them are infinitesimal. Nevertheless, Joe Biden has engaged in the same behavior as Donald Trump — perhaps worse, since vice presidents are unable to declassify documents — and precedent and transparency, our very democracy, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland name a special counsel to investigate. 

Right now, none of the rationalizations offered by the media for Biden’s actions over the past few days work anymore. When the story first broke, outlets stressed that one of the vital “distinctions” between the two incidents was that Biden was in possession of fewer documents than Trump. Biden aides, we learned, had been utterly shocked to discover only a “small number” of classified documents “locked” in the personal offices of the president’s “think tank” — as if the location or the number of documents, or the alleged lock, rather than the contents, were the most newsworthy aspect of the story.

Soon we learned that a second “batch” of classified documents was uncovered at an “undisclosed” location. Biden aides, we are told, began diligently rummaging through boxes to ensure they were in complete compliance with the law. NBC News reported that “the search was described as exhaustive, with the goal of getting a full accounting of all classified documents that may have inadvertently been packed in boxes when Biden cleared out of the vice president’s office space in January 2017.” It’s heartening to know that the Bidens are such diligent, law-abiding folk.

Yesterday, we were told that classified documents that are found in a serious office setting, rather than just “lying around” in a home, was an important difference between the two cases. Today, Biden’s lawyer says that “small number” of classified documents was also found “locked” in Biden’s garage and an “adjacent” room of his Wilmington, Delaware, home. (Don’t worry, the president assures us it was safely stored next to his beloved Corvette.) You know, if we find another “small number” of documents, we might just have ourselves a full cache.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/01/12/should-someone-this-dumb-to-be-the-special-counsel-investigating-joe-bidens-stolen-classified-documents-scandal-n1661310

We’re assured that the person hired to be special counsel in the Joe Biden classified document scandal, Robert Hur, “has a great record. He is a superb lawyer.” He was a pivotal right-hand man in a high governmental office. He “has a long and distinguished career as a federal prosecutor.” And was a key person dealing with a very special, special counsel.

That guy sounds like a total legal dreamboat. Except that those accolades were spoken by none other than disgraced former-deputy attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who conspired with the fellow disgracee Andrew McCabe to wear a wire to catch Donald Trump in a 25th Amendment-worthy meltdown because they hated him so much.

Pardon me if I don’t swoon.

The high government official was at the right hand of the awful FBI Director Chris Wray, who has overseen the complete transmogrification of the bureau from a law enforcement agency to an intelligence entity that spies on Americans. And the man touting his “distinguished career” is none other than the most ideologically Leftist hack who’s ever disgraced the office of the attorney general, Merrick Garland. And that’s saying something. Looking at you, “wingman” Eric Holder.

And there’s more. Robert Hur is the man who served as the DOJ point man to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation looking into Donald Trump’s alleged side hustle as a Russian secret agent — Double 45.

He is the same guy who vetted retired British spy Christopher Steele, a disgraced (sensing a pattern here?) spy who was fired by the FBI (and then used on the QT by his cutout Bruce Ohr) and hired actual Russian spies on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to make up information on Trump.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/dem-classified-capers/

“Documents with classified markings were found inside an institution at which President Joe Biden worked before he took office,” The Epoch Times reports. Biden’s lawyer Richard Sauber found the documents at the Penn Biden Center last November 2, but did not disclose the finding until January 9, 2023.

Donald Trump and assorted Republicans wondered when the FBI would raid the home of Joe Biden and institutions where the Delaware Democrat stored government documents. A search could start with Biden’s Senate papers, now locked up at the University of Delaware.

In 2010, as Fox News reports, vice-president Biden expressed concern that “political sensitivities” could arise from releasing the papers. Biden associate counsel Katherine Oyama emailed Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner Eric Schwerin that the vice president and the White House “will have strong views on some of these items, especially those related to the timing and scope of any public release.” Similar concerns arose in the spring of 2020.

After Tara Reade accused Biden of sexual assault, the Delaware Democrat made a public request for a search of Senate records from 1993 for the alleged complaint. Senate secretary Julie Adams proclaimed that “disclosing the existence of such specific records would amount to a prohibited disclosure under the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991. Furthermore, we are not aware of any exceptions in law authorizing our office to disclose any such records that do exist, if any, even to original participants in a matter.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/13/is-day-of-reckoning-at-hand-for-biden-familys-influence-peddling/

After more than two months, the Justice Department has finally named a special counsel to look into President Joe Biden’s possession of classified government documents at his namesake think tank and his Delaware home. For this, give credit to the newly elected Republican Congress.

As the saying goes, a new broom sweeps clean. And with a new Congress, comes new priorities. That includes investigating the Biden family’s possible criminal corruption in its “business ties” to Chinese, Ukrainian and Russian state-linked organizations.

It took Attorney General Merrick Garland just days following Trump’s Nov. 16 announcement that he would run for president in 2024 to name a special counsel.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well,” Garland said “I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

That timing is interesting, since it was on Nov. 2, six days before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, that classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania just miles from the White House.

But it took until Monday for the Justice Department to announce the “discovery.” Would it have made a difference in the midterm elections? Who knows? We do know, however, that Garland waited until after the midterms and the epic battle over House leadership, to finally name a special counsel.

No doubt, after seeing the 20 GOP Freedom Caucus members’ willingness to fight for what they wanted, including a congressional investigation into the whole sordid Hunter Biden laptop affair, followed by the discovery this week of a new trove of classified documents stashed at Biden’s Delaware home garage right next to his beloved Corvette Stingray, Garland knew he had to act.

Biden’s jokey response was feeble bordering on pathetic.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-classified-documents-merrick-garland-special-counsel-robert-hur-11673565715?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Hear that quacking sound from Washington? It’s Attorney General Merrick Garland’s latest duck. Faced with news that classified documents were recently found not only in a private office of President Biden’s but also his Delaware home, including in the garage, Mr. Garland on Thursday named another special counsel.

“I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity,” Mr. Garland said. “But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel.” He claimed this would make clear the Justice Department’s “commitment to both independence and accountability.” The new special counsel is Robert Hur, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist before starting a career as a federal prosecutor.

To repeat what we said when Mr. Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate President Trump, including Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago document hoard, the political insulation being sought here is a matter of mere perception. Whatever Mr. Hur finds out about how classified material wound up in Mr. Biden’s garage next to his Corvette, Mr. Garland shoulders the responsibility for the investigation, including deciding how to conclude it.

“My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Mr. Biden said Thursday. Rest easy, America: The First Vette is safe and sound. As for the classified papers from his time as Vice President, locked or not, Mr. Biden’s garage isn’t a secure place where they’re supposed to be kept. Additional classified material, Mr. Biden also said, was recently found in his personal library. Still, he argued: “People know, I take classified documents and classified material seriously.”

https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/dont-buy-bidens-surprise-classified-documents-were-moved-at-least-twice/

With the reported discovery of a second batch of highly classified documents connected to President Biden, the decisions of Attorney General Merrick Garland are fast moving from inexplicable to incomprehensible.

Garland was presumably briefed that classified documents were discovered in Joe Biden’s old office on Nov. 2. He also presumably knew about the Biden documents when he appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago 16 days later.

At the time of the appointment of Jack Smith, some of us noted the inexplicable refusal of Garland to appoint a special counsel to look into alleged Biden influence peddling and other crimes.

Garland continued to refuse such an appointment even as he justified the appointment of Smith on the basis that Donald Trump was running for the presidency. Joe Biden is the president. What is the difference?

Biden, meanwhile, is feigning ignorance, simply saying he was “surprised” the documents were there.

By not discussing the content of the documents, Biden minimizes his vulnerability to charges of obstruction or false statements. He can simply declare “surprise,” knowing that many in the media will welcome his silence as they spin the scandal.

 The documents were discovered six days before the midterm elections at a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.

Despite the lack of information, the press and pundits have already declared there is no real national security danger and certainly no comparison to Mar-a-Lago. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) declared, “There is no comparison. They were in a locked closet. They were not accessible.”

So that is the standard? A locked closet? The Mar-a-Lago storage room was locked and later the security was enhanced at the request of the FBI.

It is fair to note that Trump and his staff are accused of false statements and obstruction. However, that does not change the same alleged crime of unlawful removal and possession.