This is the clear difference between Trump, Pence and Biden. While these documents never should have left the White House without a clear protocol, Pence and Biden told the appropriate people once the documents were found and turned them over.
With Trump, the National Archives had to repeatedly ask for classified documents. When documents were not given, the NARA referred the matter to the DOJ and FBI leading them to subpoena Trump for the materials. Trump's attorneys told the Justice Department "all classified documents had been returned." After discovering there were still missing documents, the FBI searched Mar-A-Lago in August 2022.
Trump, by illegally holding these documents at his personal residence, has brought on potential obstruction charges against himself. However, there have been no obstruction charges against Pence or Biden during the searches.
When a president, vice president or any elected official leaves there is meant to be a process surrounding the handling of documents to ensure nothing leaves with the elected officials that belong to the people's archives. Clearly, in all these cases proper protocol was not followed, as now there is a serious question as to who saw all the different documents when they were moved to these other locations.
The National Archives and the congressional oversight committees need to adapt its protocols around the handling of all classified documents. When an administration is leaving office, there need to be multiple representatives from the NARA to oversee what is being packed to ensure that no classified documents are leaving the White House or Washington, D.C. If the NARA does not do so, this will not be the only document scandal to occur.
Robert Weiner was spokesman for the House Government Operations and Oversight Committee (which has jurisdiction over the document standards), senior staff for U.S. Reps. Claude Pepper, Ed Koch, John Conyers, Charles Rangel, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and the Clinton and George W. Bush White House administrations and 4-Star General McCaffrey. Lexi Meola is a policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates and Solutions for Change.
Article originally published in the Indianapolis Star
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