The following includes editorial content which expresses the opinion of the writer, a retired police chief and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.
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WASHINGTON, DC- “Whatever the Democrats accuse Republicans of doing…they themselves are actually doing.” That has seemingly become evident over the past couple of weeks after it was revealed that Joe Biden, who called former President Donald Trump “irresponsible” for having classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, was found to himself be secreting classified documents not in one location but in at least three, reports say.
The difference between the former president and the current occupant of the Oval Office is that in the case of Trump, as president he had the authority to declassify documents at his disposal.
In the case of Biden, the documents were from his time as vice president, whose office has no authority to remove classified documents. Now, Republicans are demanding the White House release visitor logs from Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware residence, where some of the classified documents were found, National Review reports.
The time period covers five years whereby the classified documents were sitting in a garage between the end of Biden’s vice presidential term until they were discovered in November, just before the midterm elections. The discovery of classified documents was buried until some two months after the midterms, a striking similarity to the shelving of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee drafted a letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday demanding the White House produce visitor logs for Biden’s private residence since a trove of classified documents were discovered in the garage where Biden houses his Corvette.
“Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,” Comer wrote. “Without a list of individuals who have visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents.”
Visitor log secrecy goes back to Obama-Biden admin and Garland. https://t.co/0kpI6gpObV https://t.co/cp7U7Ikdqz
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) January 17, 2023
A spokesman for the Secret Service confirmed that no visitor logs are kept at Biden’s Delaware residence, despite the agency having a security detail posted there.
“We don’t independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told Fox News Digital.
The White House counsel’s office, however, claims that it isn’t “standard practice” to keep visitor logs for private residences, a practice for which Democrats constantly harangued former President Trump.
“Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the White House Counsel’s office told Fox in a statement. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”
One interesting development outside of the visitor logs is the revelation of who was living in the house at the time. That would be one Hunter Biden, the crackhead son of Joe Biden who has had a number of cozy business relationships with foreign countries, including Ukraine and communist China, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week.
In light of the revelations, Attorney General Merrick Garland had his hands tied and was forced to appoint Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate whether Biden had indeed mishandled classified documents during his term as vice president.
Some have criticized Hur’s charge as being too restrictive, given allegations of the Biden family’s corrupt business practices, some which are tied to Joe Biden himself and include dealings with CEFC China, an energy company which was closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party.
“The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said at a Jan. 12 press conference. [emphasis added]
The appointment of Hur didn’t seem to satisfy Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who slammed the DOJ’s handling of the situation.
“They knew this happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public,” McCarthy told a press gathering on Capitol Hill.
There has also been sharp criticism of the apparent disconnect between how the FBI handled allegations of classified documents being held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and the Biden situation. In the case of Trump, FBI agents conducted a pre-dawn raid and spent hours searching Trump’s residence.
In the case of Biden, the classified documents were found by Biden’s personal attorneys in number of separate locations.
The first, discovered in early November, were found at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington, DC “think tank” affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.
That drew concerns when it was revealed the university had received tens of millions of dollars in donations from Chinese interests. There was also a large some of money that came from “anonymous” sources.
It appears that the Penn Biden Center was nothing less than a money-laundering scheme to funnel money from the Chinese communists to Biden, who was on the payroll at the University of Pennsylvania for a high-six figure gig where he basically didn’t even have to show up.
On December 20, Biden’s personal attorney notified the White House that additional documents had been discovered in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington home. However that discovery wasn’t reported until January 9. Additional documents were subsequently found in a room in the Biden home.
Sources familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that some of the documents discovered in Biden’s former office at the “think tank” were labeled “Top Secret.”
The Presidential Records Act says that “all presidential and vice presidential records must be transferred to the National Archives at the end of an administration.
When the classified documents were discovered at Trump’s home, a number of Democrats called for him to be arrested and tried. Those same Democrats have been silent on Biden committing the same act, which is even more egregious because in the case of Trump, he was at least authorized to declassify documents. Biden enjoyed no such privilege.
The discovery of classified and top secret documents at various locations tied to Biden drew the attention of the former president.
“The White House just announced that there are no LOGS or information of any kind on visitors to the Wilmington house and flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured, but now very famous garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“This is one of seemingly many places where HIGHLY CLASSIFIED documents are stored (in a big pile on the damp floor),” he added.
Trump also drew a contrast between Mar-a-Lago and the locations where Biden left classified documents.
“Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone!” Trump continued.
While the discovery of classified documents at Trump’s home drew outrage from the leftist mainstream media, for the most part they have remained far-less apoplectic over Biden’s carelessness with government secrets.
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