FBI Ignores Congressional Subpoena

[jj3jordan 2,056]

6 hours ago, homersapien said:

You are a fool if you think the government is going to prosecute anyone for having a classified document without intent.  Maybe a low level soldier, but certainly not a member of congress or politician who might possess such documents as a function of their job.

Now if they find they do have one, and immediately fail to disclose it, that's a different matter.  That shows intent to violate the law.

Hillary had a lot of intent then.

[DKW 86 7,431]

18 hours ago, homersapien said:

You post one thing and then claim you didn't say it.   (I am not surprised.)

You clearly stated popular opinion as justification for a factual argument you were making (which was not factual at all).

 

Again, no, I never did. All I discussed was that now most of America agrees with me.

[DKW 86 7,431]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:34 PM, homersapien said:

You think Trump should get off free from what he did?

Do you see any difference between Biden, Pence's and Trump's actions?

 

Yes, but the difference has no effect on the LAW. Intent may mean more years in prison, but the LAW states mere possession is the reason for prosecution and jail time. 

The LAW starts at POSSESSION. I would hope that NOLA would step in here about Intent. What are the standards for proving INTENT? What do we know about what is in a person's thought process. This is like charging a hate crime. How do you prove conclusively what their intent really was? Dont you prosecute ACTIONS? Thinking about slapping your wife one night is not the same as actually assaulting her. 

First tell me how you are going to conclusively establish INTENT in anyone for anything? Their online writings in a chatroom? That might be cool.

But what if it was just a pile of hyperbole?

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by DKW 86

[DKW 86 7,431]

15 hours ago, GoAU said:

Biden's attorneys conducted the search.....  Hmmm, that seems appropriate. laughable.

FTFY.

Remember that these were Biden Attorneys with no clearance to even see nor hold the docs at any time. The very idea that they found the docs means it was a national security breach.

[DKW 86 7,431]

19 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

What do you want me to say? Yes, thousands of enlisted people handle NOFORN, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, TOP SECRET, etc material all the time and never mishandle a document.
Your answer is genuinely: "Dave you are stupid if you don't know that everyone in DC has a second set of laws just for them." 

Do I know about this? Sure. Everyone does. Is it DEMOCRATIC? Is it good for a DEMOCRACY to have set of rules and laws depending on the social caste of the accused? We all know the answer is no. 

But back to your silly statement. I addressed the LAW. The law says possession of a document is a crime. Snowden, Manning, Texeira all are in possession of documents that have them either in jail or going to jail, etc.

Their intent was to inform the world of bad actors that were up to no good. So, I guess Intent really is in the eye of the beholder. 

 

AGAIN, if INTENT mattered, why are we prosecuting Snowden, Manning, Texeira, Assange, and dozens more?

If you really believe that INTENT matters even 1% tell us why we are prosecuting people that wanted to let the American people know what obviously bad actors were up to? And yes, If I were president for one day, I would review all the details and would probably start issuing pardons to all the above. Do we prosecute the Watergate Reporters for Intent to Distribute?

We need whistleblowers. Insert Democracy/Darkness BS here.

Edited June 4, 2023 by DKW 86

[homersapien 11,393]

On 6/4/2023 at 8:21 AM, DKW 86 said:

AGAIN, if INTENT mattered, why are we prosecuting Snowden, Manning, Texeira, Assange, and dozens more?

If you really believe that INTENT matters even 1% tell us why we are prosecuting people that wanted to let the American people know what obviously bad actors were up to? And yes, If I were president for one day, I would review all the details and would probably start issuing pardons to all the above. Do we prosecute the Watergate Reporters for Intent to Distribute?

We need whistleblowers. Insert Democracy/Darkness BS here.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intent#:~:text=The concept of intent is often the focal,other being the actual act%2C or actus reus).

"The concept of intent is often the focal point of Criminal Law and is generally shown by circumstantial evidence such as the acts or knowledge of the defendant. In Criminal Law, criminal intent, also known as mens rea, is one of two elements that must be proven in order to secure a conviction (the other being the actual act, or actus reus).

In Criminal Law, criminal intent, also known as mens rea, is one of two elements that must be proven in order to secure a conviction (the other being the actual act, or actus reus). Some jurisdictions further classify intent into general and specific. It is sometimes difficult to draw a clear distinction between these modes of intent, but the Supreme Court has held that general intent corresponds loosely with knowledge of a crime whereas specific intent refers to the purpose behind committing it."

In the cases you mention, intent to steal classified documents for the purpose of publicizing then was clearly evident. 

Of course - to your point - simply taking and possessing the documents (and not doing any thing with them) would still be illegal.  In that case, there intent simply resides in the fact they actually took them - it wasn't an accident. They didn't just jump into their pocket.

In the case of presidents - or vice presidents - simply possessing the documents was perfectly legal as part of their duties.  Simply forgetting or unknowingly neglecting to return them does not prove intent on the subject to keep them.  (This is exactly why Pence recently "got off" and Biden is likely  to do so.)

Trump, on the other hand, has shown from his own statements that he intended to keep them.  His intent in this case makes all the difference.  (That is exactly why his lawyers were so upset when he revealed his intent to take them on CNN - they were planning to say it was all a mistake.)

Again, I am not an attorney and this is no way a prediction of what is going to happen.  But I am sure intent will play a key role.  We shall see.

(And I wouldn't call on Nola to weigh-in.  He's recently demonstrated he's not a reliable contributor and is apparently afraid to engage me - and likely others - in a straight up debate, presumably because he doesn't want to risk looking  bad.)

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by homersapien

[GoAU 1,600]

7 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

FTFY.

Remember that these were Biden Attorneys with no clearance to even see nor hold the docs at any time. The very idea that they found the docs means it was a national security breach.

Agreed - hope you picked up on the sarcasm.  

[homersapien 11,393]

On 6/3/2023 at 4:29 PM, GoAU said:

.....  Hmmm, that seems appropriate. 

As opposed to..... ???

Edited June 4, 2023 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,393]

10 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

FTFY.

Remember that these were Biden Attorneys with no clearance to even see nor hold the docs at any time. The very idea that they found the docs means it was a national security breach.

And the lawyer immediately left the site and was replaced by someone who did have security clearance.  Big ******* deal. 

You sound like Jim Jordan.

Edited June 4, 2023 by homersapien

[GoAU 1,600]

On 6/3/2023 at 4:08 PM, homersapien said:

The following article summarizes what I know about the Biden document case (emphasis mine):

Here's what we know about the classified documents found at Biden's home and office

Updated January 14, 2023

 

President Biden is facing a Department of Justice investigation after his lawyers found classified documents at his Delaware residence and an office in Washington, D.C.

They were found in multiple instances, with a White House lawyer announcing on Saturday that five more pages had been found at Biden's home.

On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former Justice Department official Robert Hur to lead the DOJ probe.

"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law," Garland said Thursday.

The announcement came just a few days after news broke that classified documents had been found at Biden's private office less than a week before the midterm elections in November — a discovery that led the DOJ to launch an initial inquiry.

The White House has said it has cooperated with the DOJ during its review and plans to continue working with Hur's special counsel investigation.

"We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake," said Richard Sauber, a White House lawyer, in a statement.

Here's what we know about the Biden documents so far:

On four occasions, classified documents were found at Biden's private residence and a D.C. office he used before becoming president.

Early last November, Biden's personal lawyers were packing files from an office he had in Washington for his work at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think-tank founded by the University of Pennsylvania.

There, in a "locked closet," the White House said, they discovered some classified files that should not have been there. The documents were turned over to the National Archives.

Then, on Nov. 4, the National Archives inspector general informed the Department of Justice of the discovery. By mid-November, Garland had tapped John Lausch, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Chicago, to oversee an assessment of the materials.

On Dec. 20, Biden's personal counsel Robert Bauer informed Lausch that another set of documents had been found that day in the garage of Biden's private home in Wilmington, Del. Those documents were soon secured by the FBI.

On Jan. 11 — two days after CBS News broke a story about the documents — Biden's personal attorneys searched his homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach. They found one classified document at Biden's Wilmington home.

On Thursday, the White House described the review as being over. "The search is complete," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

But on Saturday, Sauber, the White House lawyer, said he had found five more pages at Biden's Wilmington home on Thursday when he was working with DOJ officials to hand over what he had days earlier described as one final page of classified material.

The White House says it was unintentional and that they will cooperate fully.

Biden has said that he takes the handling of classified information seriously and that he is "cooperating fully and completely" with the Justice Department.

The White House has said Biden does not know the content of the documents.

Still, the White House was hardly forthcoming about the existence of a second set of documents. When it confirmed the first discovery in the D.C. office, there was no mention of the second batch recovered in Delaware. It was only after news reports that revealed the later discovery did the White House acknowledge it.

On Saturday, Sauber explained that Biden's personal lawyers — led by Bob Bauer — had been conducting the searches of Biden's home. Those lawyers did not have security clearances. So when they had found a classified document on Wednesday, they stopped searching that area, he said.

It wasn't until Thursday evening when Sauber, who has a security clearance, went to Wilmington with DOJ officials to give them the final document that they found five additional pages of classified materials, he said.

We don't know what was in the documents, or how many were found.

The documents are classified, so they have not been publicly described, beyond that they were records that dated to Biden's time as vice president during the Obama administration.

A special counsel will oversee the investigation.

On Thursday, Attorney General Garland appointed a special counsel to take charge of the DOJ's investigation, calling the events "extraordinary circumstances." The investigation will be conducted following the department's rules, but the special counsel operates independently of day-to-day oversight from the Justice Department — an arrangement designed to avoid even the suggestion of interference.

Hur, the special counsel, is a longtime prosecutor who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland from 2018 to 2021, at the appointment of then-President Donald Trump. He has previously worked on a variety of national security, public corruption and corporate fraud cases.

The Hur appointment follows Garland's decision last November to tap former war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel in a pair of cases involving Trump, including his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Critics have accused Biden of hypocrisy and say he should have acknowledged the discovery sooner.

Critics of Biden, including many Republicans, have seized on the revelations to raise new complaints about the Biden administration's handling of the Trump classified document saga, including the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

"Another faux pas by the Biden administration by treating law differently based upon your political beliefs. Treats President Trump one way but treats President Biden a whole different way," said Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a press conference Thursday.

McCarthy and others have also said that Biden should have disclosed the discovery sooner: The first documents were discovered on Nov. 2, just six days before last fall's midterm elections.

Republicans have already vowed to use their new House majority to probe Biden's handling of the classified documents and how federal agencies responded.

On Friday, Republican House Judiciary members sent a letter to the attorney general announcing their inquiry into the handling of the documents and the appointment of Hur. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., demanded "all documents and communications" between the DOJ, FBI and White House related to the "mishandling of the classified documents" and the appointment of the special counsel.

There are parallels with the Trump classified documents saga, but the two situations are not identical.

The Presidential Records Act requires that all presidential (and vice presidential) documents be turned over to the National Archives upon the end of an administration. Other rules govern the storage of classified documents.

Now, both presidents have run afoul of those rules.

But from what we know so far, there are already important differences between how the two have handled their respective situations.

In Trump's case, the National Archives was the first to identify the missing documents and request their return.

Trump initially resisted returning them, and his lawyers at times misled federal investigators. After months of back-and-forth between the government and Trump aides, 15 boxes of documents were returned in January 2022. According to the FBI, the boxes included 184 classified documents, including 25 marked "Top Secret," as well as others denoted with labels indicating they contained national security information, such as "FISA." But more documents still remained at Mar-a-Lago, and ultimately the FBI raided the resort in August to retrieve the rest.

By contrast, Biden's team appears to have found a smaller number of documents, and returned them to the federal government promptly.

Still, the revelations about improperly stored documents and the appointment of a special counsel are an "embarrassment" to the Biden administration, said Leon Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration and as secretary of defense under President Obama.

"It's both an embarrassment and damaging to the credibility of the White House, because obviously the president has criticized former president Trump and the way he handled classified documents at Mar-a-Lago," Panetta said in an interview with NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/14/1149071576/biden-classified-documents-what-we-know

 

But to answer your question directly, yes, I believe it is very possible that Biden had these documents in his possession without realizing it.  Now that can be fairly characterized as extremely careless or even incompetent - but, as we are seeing - it is apparently not uncommon.

Former presidents and vice-presidents accumulate tons of paper they preserve for whatever reasons, typically for books or libraries.  Apparently, there has been in general, a lack of process to monitor this process.  That needs to be addressed.

Heck, I would be willing to believe the same "carelessness excuse" about Trump, except for 1) all of the new information associated with his case that has emerged and 2) his refusal to comply with the government's request to return them.

Anyway, regarding Biden, there has been nothing to suggest he had any sort of nefarious intent to possess these documents. 

(One would assume that had he   to keep them, they would have been a lot more organized and protected instead of just scattered around as they apparently were. And if these documents are "years old", what was his intent in the first place?)

More importantly, Biden didn't hesitate to volunteer their existence to the appropriate authorities when discovered and willingly returned them. 

So I say let the investigations do their work in all of these cases.  Hopefully, we'll learn a lot more about exactly what these documents contained as well as addressing the issue of intent in each case.

And if you don't think intent is relevant both from a legal and a political standpoint, just wait.

Meanwhile if you are interested in pursuing that question, here's an interesting piece that discusses it:

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3588&context=wmlr

First, Biden and his team didn't just "find" the documents and voluntarily turn them over.  They got caught and just got in front of the breaking story.   These documents had been missing for over 4 years.  

 

Also, as I am sure you are aware the "number" of documents pales in comparison to what they were, and what they were used for.  We don't have any information for either Trump or Biden to compare or contrast the magnitude of the offenses.

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

As opposed to..... ???

Someone like the FBI.  Letting Biden's attorneys conduct the search and announce (incorrectly at least a couple of times) that there were no more documents shows either they are incompetent and / or corrupt.  Either is bad, both is worse.

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

And the lawyer immediately left the site and was replaced by someone who did have security clearance.  Big ******* deal. 

You sound like Jim Jordan.

It is a big deal - it shows either incompetence or carelessness, whichever you prefer.  If your going to search for classified documents, you would think that you would have someone who is cleared on the search.

[icanthearyou 4,463]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-oversight-leaders-clash-viewing-185832270.html

[DKW 86 7,431]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:15 PM, homersapien said:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intent#:~:text=The concept of intent is often the focal,other being the actual act%2C or actus reus).

"The concept of intent is often the focal point of Criminal Law and is generally shown by circumstantial evidence such as the acts or knowledge of the defendant. In Criminal Law, criminal intent, also known as mens rea, is one of two elements that must be proven in order to secure a conviction (the other being the actual act, or actus reus).

In Criminal Law, criminal intent, also known as mens rea, is one of two elements that must be proven in order to secure a conviction (the other being the actual act, or actus reus). Some jurisdictions further classify intent into general and specific. It is sometimes difficult to draw a clear distinction between these modes of intent, but the Supreme Court has held that general intent corresponds loosely with knowledge of a crime whereas specific intent refers to the purpose behind committing it."

In the cases you mention, intent to steal classified documents for the purpose of publicizing then was clearly evident. 

Of course - to your point - simply taking and possessing the documents (and not doing any thing with them) would still be illegal.  In that case, there intent simply resides in the fact they actually took them them - it wasn't an accident. They didn't just jump into their pocket.

In the case of presidents - or vice presidents - simply possessing the documents was perfectly legal as part of their duties.  Simply forgetting or unknowingly neglecting to return them does not prove intent on the subject to keep them.  (This is exactly why Pence recently "got off" and Biden is likely  to do so.)

Trump, on the other hand, has shown from his own statements that he intended to keep them.  His intent in this case makes all the difference.  (That is exactly why his lawyers were so upset when he revealed his intent to take them on CNN - they were planning to say it was all a mistake.)

Again, I am not an attorney and this is no way a prediction of what is going to happen.  But I am sure intent will play a key role.  We shall see.

(And I wouldn't call on Nola to weigh-in.  He's recently demonstrated he's not a reliable contributor and is apparently afraid to engage me - and likely others - in a straight up debate, presumably because he doesn't want to risk looking  bad.)

 

Thank you for acknowledging I was correct. Intent is circumstantial and hard to prove. With trump, however, he may have crossed the deniability line himself with his comments. Things arent circumstantial when they are openly admitted. Usually the party in question is not dumb enough to make the circumstantial case a slam dunk. Here's hoping this is FINALLY the thing that puts him out of politics forever. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by DKW 86

[DKW 86 7,431]

On 6/4/2023 at 5:12 PM, homersapien said:

And the lawyer immediately left the site and was replaced by someone who did have security clearance.  Big ******* deal. 

You sound like Jim Jordan.

No, I served in the USN in document control and know the law. The very idea that they had someone with no security clearance looking for these documents is just insanely stupid. He/She should never have been tasked to be looking for documents that they have no right to lay eyes on.

 

[DKW 86 7,431]

On 6/4/2023 at 6:23 PM, GoAU said:

First, Biden and his team didn't just "find" the documents and voluntarily turn them over.  They got caught and just got in front of the breaking story.   These documents had been missing for over 4 years.  

 

Also, as I am sure you are aware the "number" of documents pales in comparison to what they were, and what they were used for.  We don't have any information for either Trump or Biden to compare or contrast the magnitude of the offenses.

Someone like the FBI.  Letting Biden's attorneys conduct the search and announce (incorrectly at least a couple of times) that there were no more documents shows either they are incompetent and / or corrupt.  Either is bad, both is worse.

It is a big deal - it shows either incompetence or carelessness, whichever you prefer.  If your going to search for classified documents, you would think that you would have someone who is cleared on the search.

Brother, this is just a party-ass-kissing exercise for some here. Logic and law don't fit their narrative and are therefore to be immediately dismissed.

Great try tho. Maybe some of the not-so-partisan folks on the board will actually see the real points here.

Even sending the uncredentialled lawyers to look for the docs is just trump level dumbassery.

[DKW 86 7,431]

In case you lack the brains to figure it all out:

In the USN, when we did indeed have a document breach, the first thing we did was insure that those looking for the documents outside of secured area held real-life security clearances appropriate to the level of the documents that were being searched for as lost or stolen. This was Job 1 for any search procedure. 

[KansasTiger 3,248]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:06 PM, autigeremt said:

It doesn’t matter DKW. It’s a waste of time. The country is failing the people and the clock is ticking. Get a drink and enjoy the remaining years of the current US. 

This. These debates are pointless. We can't escape the debt monster in the room any longer and our Fiat currency is showing cracks in its armor. We keep debating which set of two horrible parties is right and wrong while we honestly should be uniting against them both. 

[DKW 86 7,431]

12 hours ago, KansasTiger said:

This. These debates are pointless. We can't escape the debt monster in the room any longer and our Fiat currency is showing cracks in its armor. We keep debating which set of two horrible parties is right and wrong while we honestly should be uniting against them both. 

Ditto.

[icanthearyou 4,463]

15 hours ago, KansasTiger said:

two horrible parties is right and wrong while we honestly should be uniting against them both. 

But why are they horrible?  IMHO, because, both primarily support the interests of capital.

However, one party has at the very least, some concern for the balance of society.  Albeit an imperfect one, we still have a choice.

REAL politics is semi civilized class warfare.  Good politics is balancing the interests of capital and society, not allow either to dominate.

We need to forget partisan politics and, become issue voters, economic issue voters.  The culture wars are nothing but a distraction for fools.

[GoAU 1,600]

21 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

However, one party has at the very least, some concern for the balance of society.  Albeit an imperfect one, we still have a choice.

I agree - yet for some reason you still seem to support the Democrats in spite of this.     (just kidding with ya)

Edited June 10, 2023 by GoAU

[homersapien 11,393]

On 6/8/2023 at 8:22 PM, KansasTiger said:

This. These debates are pointless. We can't escape the debt monster in the room any longer and our Fiat currency is showing cracks in its armor. We keep debating which set of two horrible parties is right and wrong while we honestly should be uniting against them both. 

So don't vote if you can't see a difference.  Seriously. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by homersapien

[KansasTiger 3,248]

3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

So don't vote if you can't see a difference.  Seriously. 

Guess it would be better than a dead liberal voting twice. Get outta here with this. I'm tired of your nonsense.

[GoAU 1,600]

The last couple of days the news around politics has been a veritable sh!t show.  Actually sad and depressing when you think about it.  
 

Both parties are jacked up and we’ve completely destroyed whatever tiny shred of confidence most Americans have had in the system.  
 

The issues with classified document laws being completely blown off by just about everyone of reasonable status it seems things they are well above the law.  It’s happened with Obama, Bill Clinton and Pence to small levels and what appears to be significant levels with Hillary (hard to argue “intent” when you install a server), Biden, and Trump.   I’d be completely fine with locking them all up.  
 

Combine that with the huge amount of confluence we’re seeing between the laptop, FBI informer documents, Biden’: own statements about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired, and the documents about international funds being transferred to practically every member of the Biden family and it hard to imagine that the DOJ doesn’t feel the need to do anything.   
 

Just disgusting….

[autigeremt 6,652]

21 hours ago, GoAU said:

The last couple of days the news around politics has been a veritable sh!t show.  Actually sad and depressing when you think about it.  
 

Both parties are jacked up and we’ve completely destroyed whatever tiny shred of confidence most Americans have had in the system.  
 

The issues with classified document laws being completely blown off by just about everyone of reasonable status it seems things they are well above the law.  It’s happened with Obama, Bill Clinton and Pence to small levels and what appears to be significant levels with Hillary (hard to argue “intent” when you install a server), Biden, and Trump.   I’d be completely fine with locking them all up.  
 

Combine that with the huge amount of confluence we’re seeing between the laptop, FBI informer documents, Biden’: own statements about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired, and the documents about international funds being transferred to practically every member of the Biden family and it hard to imagine that the DOJ doesn’t feel the need to do anything.   
 

Just disgusting….

Agreed! However, a lot of people treat this stuff like it’s a sport and want a win at all costs. 

[homersapien 11,393]

On 6/2/2023 at 6:09 PM, DKW 86 said:

The law is absent intent. That is a figment of your imagination. While you may seem to think that intent matters, it doesn't. Possession of classified documents is illegal. PERIOD.

Intent matters nothing.

Whoops!  Another "swing and a miss". 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/11/clinton-biden-classified-documents-trump-indictment/

Why Trump was charged on secret documents and Clinton, Pence were not

The former president does not face illegal-retention charges for the classified documents he returned to the National Archives

When Donald Trump was indicted last week on charges of willful retention of classified documents, many Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, cried foul, arguing that the Justice Department was treating the 45th president differently than it has Democrats who’ve been investigated over possible mishandling of national security secrets.

But the Trump indictment itself helps explain the difference between his case and other high-profile probes, like those of Hillary Clinton, President Biden and former vice president Mike Pence — not for what it charges, but for what it doesn’t.

Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, a crime delineated in the Espionage Act that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Each count represents a different highly sensitive document that Trump allegedly kept at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence and private club.

Twenty-one of those documents, including some involving nuclear secrets, were found by FBI agents who searched the estate in August — yielding a total of 102 classified documents, according to the indictment. The other 10 willful-retention charges stem from a batch of 38 classified documents turned over to the FBI last June in response to a grand jury subpoena.

But the historic investigation into the former president was precipitated months earlier, in January 2022, when the former president gave 15 boxes of papers to the National Archives and Records Administration. The agency had been seeking all presidential records from Trump since he left office.

Inside the boxes, archivists found 197 classified documents, some extremely sensitive, the government alleged in court filings. That discovery set in motion the chain of events that led to the unsealing Friday of a 38-count indictment against Trump and Walt Nauta, a trusted servant.

Notably, however, the indictment does not charge Trump with the illegal retention of any of the 197 documents he returned to the archives.

That shows that if Trump had simply returned all the classified documents he had, he probably never would have been charged with any crimes, said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor.

“This is not a case about what documents were taken, it’s about what former president Trump did after the government sought to retrieve those documents,” said Mintz, who noted that willful-retention cases often hinge on how much evidence prosecutors can find that a person deliberately hid material or refused to give it back.

The indictment offers anecdote after alleged anecdote charging that the former president sought to hide and keep some of the classified papers, so much so that Trump and Nauta are accused of conspiring to obstruct the investigation and scheming to conceal the truth not just from the government, but even from Trump’s own lawyer.

Those allegations include: moving boxes out of a storage room; telling an attorney to search that room for classified material without saying another person to make false statements about whether all the classified documents had been produced.

“That’s not the kind of evidence you typically find in a case like this, and it’s certainly not the type of evidence so far that has come out of the Biden investigation or the Clinton email server case,” Mintz said.

According to the indictment, Trump ruminated about the Clinton case in May 2022, as he discussed how to respond to the subpoena he had just received.

As a presidential candidate running against Clinton in 2016, he had railed against her use of a personal email server to conduct government business while serving as secretary of state — an arrangement that led to classified information being shared on a nonclassified, nongovernment computer server. Clinton’s case was also different from Trump’s in another key respect: While the email chains discussed classified topics, they were not classified documents in the traditional sense, with extensive markings and acronyms.

But when discussing his own possible mishandling case last year, Trump seized on another facet of the Clinton probe: that attorneys for Clinton had reviewed more than 60,000 emails and turned over about 30,000 to government officials because they were deemed related to her official duties. Clinton’s lawyers deleted the rest, about 30,000 emails, after deeming them personal and unrelated to her work. It has long been standard practice in the federal government for officials to review their own correspondence in response to Freedom of Information Act requests and decide which of their emails are personal and therefore not turned over. In Clinton’s case, her lawyers did that for her.

As a candidate and president, Trump denounced the decision to delete the emails. In July 2016, he notoriously declared at a news conference: “Russia: if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

When the grand jury subpoena for any classified documents arrived at his door, however, Trump expressed a very different view to his lawyer, according to the indictment, praising Clinton’s lawyer for deleting the 30,000 emails.

The Clinton lawyer, Trump allegedly said on May 23, 2002, “was the one who deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails, because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and her having beauty appointments. And he was great. And he, so she didn’t get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them.”

“Trump related the story more than once that day,” the indictment notes dryly.

“I really don’t think there’s any plausible comparison between the Trump case and the Hillary Clinton case,” said Robert Kelner, a veteran D.C. attorney. “The key difference is that in the Hillary Clinton case, as we learned from the Department of Justice inspector general report, there was no evidence that Hillary Clinton sought to obstruct justice. … The focus of the Trump indictment is on his rather stark effort to obstruct justice. That’s the fundamental difference.”

The Clinton lawyer, Trump allegedly said on May 23, 2002, “was the one who deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails, because they basically dealt with her scheduling and her going to the gym and her having beauty appointments. And he was great. And he, so she didn’t get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them.”

“Trump related the story more than once that day,” the indictment notes dryly.

“I really don’t think there’s any plausible comparison between the Trump case and the Hillary Clinton case,” said Robert Kelner, a veteran D.C. attorney. “The key difference is that in the Hillary Clinton case, as we learned from the Department of Justice inspector general report, there was no evidence that Hillary Clinton sought to obstruct justice. … The focus of the Trump indictment is on his rather stark effort to obstruct justice. That’s the fundamental difference.”

Comparing the Trump indictment to the ongoing investigation of Biden is more difficult, partly because fewer facts are known about the current president’s possession of classified documents when he was out of office.

The Justice Department began investigating the matter late last year, when roughly a dozen classified documents were found at a think tank office in Washington that Biden had used before he became president — suggesting the papers may have dated to his time as vice president.

Weeks after that discovery, a small number of classified documents were also found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate whether any crimes were committed. Biden’s lawyers say they have cooperated at every step of the investigation and readily returned all classified materials found in the office and the Wilmington house. An FBI search of Biden’s beach house turned up no classified papers.

The Pence case also points to the key distinction in the national security probes involving presidents, former top officials or presidential candidates — that it is not so much what is taken, but what is kept. Just a week before the Trump indictment, the Justice Department notified Pence it had closed an investigation into whether he mishandled classified information.

FBI agents had conducted a consensual search at Pence’s Indiana home in February, after a lawyer for Pence found “a small number” of potentially sensitive or classified documents there in late January. The FBI search turned up one additional classified document, according to an adviser.

All the materials were quickly turned over to government authorities, Pence’s lawyer said.

Days after the Justice Department closed the case, Pence formally announced his 2024 bid for president.

He joined a crowded Republican field, in which Trump is the front-runner.

Edited June 11, 2023 by homersapien

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I don’t think the two are an “either / or” or even more than casually related.   
 

If Trumps indictment proves to be accurate he likely (and deservingly) needs to be convicted.  As I’ve said since the beginning of this fiasco, what the documents are does make a difference.   
 

This does not have any bearing on Hillary’s case, it needs to stand alone.  We don’t have the details of what we’re in those emails - conveniently not released or deleted by her attorneys without review by the government.   I’m sorry be her attorneys saying they reviewed them has ZERO credibility in my book and there was a lot of evidence destroyed during the investigation as well.   Do I think she deserves more / less than Trump?  Honestly don’t know due to not knowing what she was doing that was so nefarious that she felt the need to install a shadow server, but I will say her justice (and Biden’s) should be based on the facts of their cases - which are being obscured / covered up.