Secrets and Lies

So now we have two Presidents, the current one and the former one, who took classified materials home. Donald Trump called the documents “his” and allegedly lied about what he was still keeping after the FBI came to Mar-a-Lago to collect it. In the case of President Biden, he said he didn’t know that there were such documents in an office he used back when he was vice president. More documents were found in a locked garage at his home in Delaware.

Unlike Trump, Biden has been cooperative about turning the materials back in – except he didn’t reveal what had been going on to the public until after the November mid-term election. Of the first set of documents, he said he was unaware of their existence at the private office - but he’s a lawyer, and what about the well-known attorney phrase, “knew or should have known”?

While the responses of the two men have been vastly different, I think the “average bear” couldn’t entirely be blamed for lumping the two cases together, I personally think there are bigger questions here, such as, who allowed them to take these materials - or helped them do it - in the first place? Clearly, it’s not just about these two men. There is a systemic failure here that needs addressing.

If someone tries to shoplift a pair of jeans from a department store, an alarm goes off to store personnel as soon as the item leaves the building. Couldn’t classified materials somehow be treated the same? Spray the pages with something that triggers an alarm? I don’t know.

There are many people in Washington with high-level security clearances. Should we be searching their garages?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again here: I don’t think Mr. Biden should run for President again. Don’t misunderstand me: we have been very fortunate to have had him in this position the past two years, and I am grateful we will have him for two more. But this documents matter is just another bat the right wing can use to beat him up. If he bows out for 2024, it will de-fang their investigations and highlight the waste of time and money involved in pursuing them.

Besides this documents stuff, we have more important things going on at the moment, like whether our country will pay its debts and who really is running Congress, just for starters. Our plate is a little full, don’t you think?