Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both under investigation for their management of the White House archives, files as sensitive as they are different.
• Also read: Biden is on the defensive after new classified documents are discovered
• Also read: Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate classified Biden documents
Common points
In the United States, Congress declared in 1978 that all documents created or received by the President and Vice President in the course of their duties belong to the United States.
Under this law, at term end, all White House emails, letters, photos, videos, and business documents must be sent to the National Archives, which is responsible for recording the history of presidential activities.
In addition, there is another espionage law, which prohibits US agents from keeping confidential documents in unauthorized and unsecured places.
It appears that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have violated these rules, the first at the end of his term as vice president in 2017, and the second when leaving the presidency in 2021.
The classified documents, which they should have returned, were already found in their possession at the Republican billionaire’s Mar-a-Lago club, in an old office and in the garage of the Democratic president’s home in Wilmington.
Looking at their personal files, Attorney General Merrick Garland has entrusted the investigations to two attorneys general: Jack Smith, appointed in November to handle the Trump case (which also includes investigations into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol) and Robert Hoare. , selected Thursday for the Biden element.
rebellious or collaborative
The two cases differ first in the attitude of the main characters.
After Donald Trump left the White House, the National Archives had to fight to get him to agree to return its files. A year later, they secured the return of 15 full boxes of documents, including some of great historical value, such as a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Convinced not to recover everything, in February 2022 this agency asked the Federal Justice to investigate. After several interviews with members of his entourage and a field visit, the FBI estimated that the billionaire may have kept other documents hidden in his luxurious home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Lists of warrants, FBI agents conducted a startling search there in August and seized about thirty more boxes. An examination showed that 18 documents classified as “top secret”, 53 “secret” and 31 “secret” were in these boxes.
On the contrary, the file related to Joe Biden hatched after a report submitted by his lawyers.
On November 2, they were emptying out Joe Biden’s former offices in Washington, when they stumbled upon classified documents — about a dozen according to the media — in a locked drawer. They immediately transferred them to the National Archives. They immediately informed the Ministry of Justice, which opened a preliminary investigation.
In parallel, attorneys for the presidency searched the two private residences of Joe Biden to check if there were other documents missing. On December 20, they notified the Department of Justice that they had found “a small number of classified documents” in the garage of his Wilmington home. The FBI captured it.
defense lines
Donald Trump has denounced “political persecution”, and has denied any wrongdoing. In particular, in October, he said, “I had a few boxes in Mar-a-Lago, which were under the protection of clients and my team.” “They must give it back to me, because everything is mine!” »
Conversely, Joe Biden says he “takes his obligations regarding classified documents very seriously,” but claims he acted “inadvertently.”
