When President Joe Biden sat for a rare interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff, he likely did not intend to reveal even more damaging information concerning the classified documents scandal. But once he starts talking, who knows what will come out?
Defending his record by keeping documents that were meant to be stored elsewhere, the president deflected blame away from himself and onto those who cleaned his offices when he left.
BREAKING: One of the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home was from 1974.
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 8, 2023
They did not properly examine every desk drawer and file cabinet on the way out, which then led to the FBI searches and discoveries of mishandled materials. Then he dropped the bombshell.
Biden explained that “to the best of my knowledge, the kinds of things they picked up were things that were from 1974 and stray papers. There may be something else, I don’t know.”
There are several points to be examined. First of all, the papers were not supposed to be in his Biden Penn Center office, to begin with — or in his Delaware home. It is hardly the responsibility of the movers to determine what is classified and what is not.
But more importantly, why was he in possession of documents from his time in the Senate in 1974?
Biden defended himself by saying he voluntarily allowed the FBI to search both locations. And while that may be true, letting law enforcement do their job in no way exonerates an individual from any potential crime they may uncover.
The FBI reported that agents also seized handwritten notes apparently concerning the classified documents. That, of course, raises the question of why Biden would have handwritten notes related to documents that he supposedly did not know were in his possession.
And has the mishandling of classified materials been ongoing since 1974? If that’s the case, then the likelihood is high that there may be many more papers floating around like a trail behind Biden.
There are still more questions than answers surrounding the president’s explanations of having classified papers spanning decades at multiple locations. But the primary concern must be that if this has been ongoing since the 1970s, how much sensitive material has been exposed?
