Former chief counsel suggests 2-month gap between discovery and public awareness shows ‘political coverup’
As Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) worry that President Joe Biden’s retention of classified materials from his vice presidency may be “[swept] under the rug,” legal experts told The Epoch Times why Biden and former President Donald Trump appear to have been treated very differently in two strikingly parallel cases.
FBI agents executed a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, in August 2022. The warrant said there was probable cause to believe there were “additional documents that contain classified NDI [national defense information]” or “presidential records subject to record retention requirements” at Mar-a-Lago.
By contrast, neither the Penn Biden Center nor any other address associated with Biden has been raided after classified materials were reportedly found at the center’s Washington office, located in a nondescript building about a mile from the White House.
“What’s the difference in what President Trump did versus what we now know President Biden did?” asked Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the incoming House Oversight Committee chairman, as reported by CBS.
Biden’s attorneys have said that the materials were identified on Nov. 2, just days before an underwhelming midterm performance by Republicans. Yet, the public was not alerted to the existence of those materials until Jan. 9, two months after those elections took place.
According to Mike Davis, former chief counsel for nominations to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and founder of the Article III Project, that delay is indicative of “a political cover-up.”
He sees it as part of a pattern under the Biden administration.
“There’s a clear political double standard at the Biden Justice Department, which has been politicized and weaponized against Republicans,” Davis told The Epoch Times on Jan. 10.
An expert on administrative law had a similar perspective.
“The fact that this has happened really creates a rule of law: if you’re a Republican, you have to meet certain exacting standards when it comes to records, and if you’re a Democrat, you don’t,” according to the subject matter expert, who requested anonymity because company policy doesn’t allow employees to speak to the media.
“A Republican president must operate in a fishbowl. If you’re a Republican president, the presumption is you have to preserve everything. And you just have to be extra careful. If you’re a Democrat, rest assured, you’re going to have different procedures applied.”
Under a more consistent system, he added, the standard set by Trump’s case would also have applied to Biden’s case.
“The Justice Department shouldn’t have said, ‘Let’s negotiate. You guys review and tell us what you find.’ The Justice Department should have immediately had the FBI raid the offices. Why? How do we know, without documenting and creating an inventory, whether the documents were classified or top secret?”
Davis contrasted the case of Trump’s records with the developing story of Biden’s handling of classified materials.
“President Trump had the absolute constitutional and statutory power under the Presidential Records Act to declassify and take presidential records when he left office. Former Vice President Joe Biden absolutely did not,” he said.
Citing an appeals court decision, an analysis of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant from the Congressional Research Service suggested that Trump’s broad authority to declassify information could be hemmed in if he failed to “‘follow established procedures.’”
“It’s the process that’s the punishment. In other words, the bureaucrats make the rules, whether or not they’re in law or not. And if you violate those rules, there are consequences,” the anonymous legal expert said.
For Davis, the more recent revelations about Biden’s vice presidential materials raise key questions pertinent to both established procedures and the United States’ national security–questions he believes Republicans in the House must pursue through their oversight authority on a range of committees.
“Did Hunter Biden have access to this office? Did James Biden have access to this office? What were these classified documents? Have they done an intel assessment? Are they planning to do an FBI raid? Are they planning to question Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Joe Biden [and] anyone else who [may have] had access to that office?” he asked.
Archives Had ‘No Power’ to Refer Trump Records Case to Justice Department: Expert
The anonymous legal expert said the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) didn’t have the authority to refer the Trump record case to the Department of Justice, as occurred prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid.
While Title 44 does specify that NARA can refer cases involving federal agency records to the Department of Justice, there’s no parallel language in that title pertaining to presidential records.
“There is no power for the archivist in those cases to make referrals to the Justice Department,” the expert said.
In the expert’s opinion, the former president’s legal team should have made a challenge on that basis.
“Trump’s lawyers were asleep at the wheel,” they said, contrasting those lawyers with Biden’s “top-quality” legal representation.
CBS has reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John R. Lausch, Jr., to investigate why the Penn Biden Center came to hold classified material.
“The review is considered a preliminary step, and the attorney general will determine whether further investigation is necessary, including potentially appointing a special counsel,” according to CBS.
Lausch, a Trump appointee, is one of only two U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump who has remained in the role under Biden. While he was initially asked to step down, Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) requested that he not be forced out.
He had been the two senators’ preference for the position in 2017, as indicated by a press release at the time.
Davis questioned the choice of Lausch to investigate the case, describing him as a “Durbin pick.”
“There absolutely should be a special counsel appointed,” he said, adding that a U.S. attorney is “not politically insulated enough.”
“There’s a clear political double standard at the Biden Justice Department, which has been politicized and weaponized against Republicans,”
This is exactly what the German Nazis did in Germany under Adolf Hitler.
As more and more information is discovered, this Democrat Party is revealed to be our country’s most destructive and deadliest ENEMY!
Trump is to Biden, what Ernst Rohm was to Hitler. Their long knves and long lies are just as long, and just as deadly to American Democracy. when equal treatment under the law for the first as well as the least individual American’s right to privacy and treatment, first goes out the window, right before the party dictatorship takes over total control. Sure sign that those who declare themselves to be American democratic are really foreign socialists at heart when given the power that gives them security to act like one openly.
Its not just the DNC.. ITS damn near the entire media establishment too.
Republican Congress we’re looking at you !
Perp Walks should be imminent.
They can and will investigate and they will make it public. The media will refuse to cover it and the Democrats will say it’s lies whenever any truth does come out. The people have a long record of believing the lies of the media and the lies of the Democrats.
As long as the Democrats control the DOJ no charges will be brought.
We can expect to hear the truth from the House committees but there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing any perp walks in the next 2 years.
They can RECOMMEND perp walks. BUT since the BIDEN controlled Dept of INJUSTICE is the one who would decide if charges are filed or not, HELL will freeze over, before ANYONE get’s perp walked.
Just wondering. No public access to Trump’s home and it is guarded by secret service agents with guns. Who guards Biden’s old office and who has access besides like the cleaning staff. Doesn’t seem to be a secure area for the storage of classified documents.
Just goes to show we are being led by Democrat elected janitor in a drum majorets., ,,,Joe Biden administration is the modern Trojan Horse Ajax cleaning crew whose Achilles heels are vulneravle to the least flaming arrows of truth. No Coincidence that the most top secret papers found included Iran, Ukraine ,and China? ,,,all which could reveal who is funding this Quisd Quo Pro puppet President. Obviously Joe smuggled them out inside his Stockings, Democrat style. to prevent the truth from coming out which makes Joe not just a Top Classified Crime Boss, but a certifed one.
What I want to know is where were those documents stored before they ended up in the Penn Biden office? From what I heard, that office wasn’t opened until a year after Biden left office. Where were they stored in that year. Of course Biden gave presser where he pulled his typical Sargent Schultz, “I see nothig, I hear nothig.” And just like with Hunter’s business dealings the lapdog media says nothing to see here, move on. We can debate whether Trump should have classified material or whether he declassified them. But the fact is, as VP, Biden should not have them and could not declassify them. I don’t care if it’s one document or a hundred, Biden broke the law by having them. But don’t expect the main stream media to report anything other than, “It’s not as bad as what Trump did.” Sorry MSM, it’s worse than Watergate.
AND whom had keys to that office!!!
These guys can’t be serious. It democraps running the show. DUH.