"It’s Not Like They’re Sitting Out in the Streets"
Our National Security Is Weakening Daily - It's Becoming A Group Effort
The Locked Garage
Last Thursday, a reporter asked President Biden, “Classified material next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
President Biden responded with a promise to say more soon, continuing with “And by the way, my Corvette’s in a locked garage, okay, so it’s not like they’re sitting out in the streets. But at any rate…”
A reporter broke in with, “So this was in a locked garage?”
President Biden responded, “Yeah, as well as my Corvette. But, as I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified material seriously…” He continued; talking about how certain classified documents had already been found in a couple of locations.
This weekend it was disclosed that even more classified material was found in his home last Thursday.
Why on earth would we believe that President Biden takes classified material seriously?
Why would anyone believe that? And how tone deaf is it to act like everything is fine because, hey, stuff was locked up.
President Biden Has Lost the National Security Moral High Ground
A man who has served in the US Government for decades knows damn well that Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) documents are to be stored behind at the very least gates behind armed guards, at least two sets of doors, at least one special lock, a facility with no windows or access to cell phones, a space that mitigates against electronic surveillance, and usually a coded entry using a combination of a specialized ID and a passcode. Again, that’s at a minimum. Such a facility is called a SCIF — a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. We don’t know if the documents that have been found were TS/SCI, but reports indicate that at least some were TS (Top Secret). The protocols for TS materials are close enough to the same as those for TS/SCI material. It’s called Top Secret for a reason, for crying out loud. Not “Keep It In Your Garage.”
People can legally move classified information between locations when there is a government need to do so. It requires a whole specialized courier process, with engineered locked carrying devices, and specialized personnel with credentials. Plus other measures.
We can rest assured that the classified materials now found in more than one Biden-associated location were not moved by secure courier. What we don’t know is how many people could have seen the highly classified materials in the moving processes — to his home property, around the property, and to the think tank location.
We can know with certainty that a “locked garage” is not the same as a SCIF. Nor is an office. Nor is a house.
President Biden done messed up. To put it nicely.
This is not okay. He should know better. The fact that he’s reacting so casually and not with the level of grave seriousness that these classified materials require spectacularly undermines his credibility with matters of national security, and particularly with protecting them. Or criticizing those people who don’t protect national security materials and information — including but not limited to Trump.
How Many People Are Involved In the Biden Document Mess?
It’s likely that this mess is a combination of faults — both President Biden’s, and his staff’s. It may also be an issue with a) how the White House manages classified material, and b) how the US Government (as a whole) manages the transition of presidential administrations.
President Biden should never have maintained an office in the White House in the Obama Administration in which classified materials were stored alongside and mixed in with unclassified materials. Ever. That’s not okay. That’s the starting point for the trouble.
Because wherever his office was in the White House… did everyone who was in it during the Obama Administration have the proper clearance to see whatever documents might have been mixed in? That’s part one of the problem.
But then there were government personnel contractors who boxed up documents. There were government-contracted movers. There were people at the think tank office where classified documents were first reported to be found. There have been family members, house guests, and likely US Secret Service agents at the Biden house and garage — most of whom likely did not have appropriate clearance for accessing classified materials.
Now we know that there were lawyers who went through many documents in several locations, and who have had access to classified materials which they were not properly cleared or trained to view or process.
How many people could have seen this classified material — or taken some of it somewhere along the way?
It’s not okay.
How is President Biden treating national security material and information right now while he is in the role of the most powerful individual on the planet? Is he truly treating classified information as casually as he indicates in the interview above? He has not demonstrated that he is, and that’s unsettling at the least. That there are now questions weakens his moral standing when it comes to national security, but it also makes the US machine as a whole look rickety. That’s not good.
President Biden’s casual remarks and reckless handling of classified material is also demoralizing to thousands of government employees and contractors who go to great lengths to operate in classified ways, to do dangerous and sensitive work that is classified, and to protect classified information. The US government relies upon these personnel and upon prior personnel to maintain its position position as the world’s most powerful superpower. Keeping government secrets is not meant to be casual. For those of us entrusted to do so or to have done so, we take it very seriously. Why don’t the men we’ve elected to be president?
Because documents are not the only risk, but it’s what the media focuses on. Most people doing national security work or touching it have knowledge and information that could potentially do great harm to the United States. That is why it’s not just dangerous that Trump took documents on purpose, lied about it, refused to return them, might still have some, and could potentially be selling them. It’s also dangerous that Trump and Company had access to the US government’s secrets overall, and could trade those secrets (documents or not) in ways that undermine our national security.
Now that President Biden has been so casual with classified materials, it is that much harder for him and for his administration to mitigate and prosecute the risks and potential damage of Trump’s document-stealing and national security knowledge that could be dangerous for the US.
Also: This Is Not A Conspiracy
Many Democrats’ initial reaction to the news about President Biden having classified documents where they shouldn’t be was to surmise that documents were planted.
Because, of course, we’re a country of conspiracy theorists. It doesn’t matter where your politics are — conspiracy theories are a super handy way to deny reality. To deny that people are not who we’d like them to be. To point the blame somewhere else.
The trouble with conspiracy theories is they don’t hold up to reality… especially to complicated realities that we complicated humans bring with us.
The number of Biden-associated locations in which classified materials have now been found makes those initial conspiracy theories about planted documents sound increasingly absurd. Add in President Biden’s “oh but the garage was locked!” defense and his other weak statements somewhat admitting to this… and those conspiracy theories go right out the window.
He messed up. He was casual. He was likely casual about classified material for years. Or — his staff was. Either way, he’s responsible. And he’s the one who’s going to take the political hit. Him and the entire Democratic party. And the country.
We’re Damaging Our National Security Together Now
Now everyone’s in it, because now you’ve got the leaders of both parties embroiled in deep classified-document-messy-White-House-transition BS.
Of course, what Donald Trump has done is in an entirely different league. Where President Biden has been reckless, casual, and dismissive… former President Trump has willfully sought to steal national security secrets — and to keep them. He has hidden them from the US government, lied about them, obstructed the government from getting them back, likely showed them to a number of people without proper clearances on purpose, and kept at least some of them “locked” in a space accessible by hotel guests including foreign adversaries to whom a lock is not an obstruction.
Since Trump had at least some of the documents for eighteen months, he may well have copied them, scanned them, put them online, or sold them to our country's enemies. We don’t know.
We almost never talk about the national security implications of what Donald Trump has done and continues to do. It’s going to be harder to do that, now, because now everything is messier. The US government as a rule doesn’t talk about classified stuff… so they’re not going to tell us how dangerous they think what Trump has taken is, and they’re not going to tell us who he’s shown or sold classified information to. It’s possible that some tiny bits could come out in court, but it would likely be a fraction of the total danger as courts are public.
On top of the fact that Trump took and held highly classified material for so long (and still could have some), the Biden Administration took 18 freaking months of unaggressive action to even try and recover the documents Trump stole, to execute a search warrant to recover them, and to let the public know that Trump had pilfered these materials and refused to return them.
EIGHTEEN. MONTHS.
That was just to execute a search warrant to get the documents back. It was even longer before a special counsel was appointed.
I mean… are you kidding me?
That eighteen months looks worse, now, because last week Attorney General Merrick Garland materialized from the ether and like a bolt of lightning appointed a special counsel to investigate President Biden's actual mishandling of classified documents (versus Trump’s willful attempted re-appropriation).
That action didn't even take a week from when this news became public.
Why didn’t AG Garland appoint a special counsel back in early 2021 when it was first known to the government that Trump had pilfered highly classified documents, thus creating a very serious and severe national security threat? Yet when the news about President Biden having classified documents in inappropriate locations became public, AG Garland acted at a speed we didn’t know he was capable of.
Why did that deeper national security risk take ALMOST TWO YEARS to get a special counsel for? The Biden documents issue was apparently known to the government in November, 2022; so the Biden situation apparently warranted a special counsel after only three months according to the AG. Why the difference? It’s glaring.
Obviously part of it is that President Biden is still in office. The American public is seeing the difference in treatment, and wondering what in the heck is going on in the US government and with the rule of law.
Plus, Trump also attempted a freaking coup and fomented an insurrection. So there’s that. Yet: still no public accountability. For him, or for any of the high-level folks that were also part of it.
AG Garland is playing with fire. In his haste to appease Republicans with the special counsel appointment to look into Biden’s funky classified document behaviour, he’s running a much bigger risk of undermining the rule of law by letting Trump get away with attempting to overthrow the government.
It’s not just Trump, though. There’s no sign that the US Department of Justice has taken seriously or pursued any of the elected federal legislators in Congress also associated with the insurrection and coup attempt. There’s no sign that DOJ is pursuing federal legislators who have threatened other federal legislators.
Many of those federal legislators continue to be in elected office, and are now in key positions running committees. They will have access to highly classified material, and be in a position to do big damage to the US government, to its budget, and to its personnel.
At this point, if DOJ were to pursue any of them, it’s likely they would attempt revenge in any number of ways. And so they have effectively — for now — become above the law. Will that continue? So far we don’t have any sign that it won’t.
A Weakened U.S.
All of this together weakens our country's national security.
Sloppiness with classified documents weakens us. Intentional pilfering of classified documents weakens us. A failure to deal with intentional pilfering of classified documents in an urgent fashion weakens us. A failure to prosecute intentional pilfering of classified documents weakens our rule of law, and treats the political class with special privileges. A failure to prosecute an ex-president and current legislators for threats of violence, an insurrection, and a coup attempt increase the risk of more of the same, and embolden those currently in power to continue to push the limits.
This is part of how authoritarianism persists and spreads. Institutions get weakened. Those who are attempting to seize power get away with illegal stuff, and get inspired to try more illegal stuff. They push the limits, and then they push more.
Right now, insurrectionist lawmakers not prosecuted for their part in the coup attempt who voted against certifying the 2020 election are threatening to vote against raising the US’ debt ceiling, which if it happens could push a global financial crisis. It would certainly further weaken the US.
Do they care? Lots of pundits think they might. But their goal isn’t a thriving United States. It’s power. They’re nihilists. They want Democrats to look bad, and they don’t care how many Americans or others get hurt while they’re holding on for dear life to the status quo. They’re okay with weakening the US, as long as they get what they want.
All of this [waves arms at everything] is what happens when we don’t uphold standards, when we get sloppy, and when we don’t uphold the rule of law. Civil society operates because we want law and democracy instead of rule by the most powerful physically or otherwise. But civil society is under attack, and we need to do a better job defending it.
The Biden Administration has already not been aggressive in rooting out and dealing with damage in the government from the Trump Administration. Lots of people and policies have been left in place that could or should have been removed. With that in mind, I’m not expecting President Biden to suddenly get aggressive and serious when he has made some dramatic mistakes and ceded the moral high ground. He could. I’ll be impressed if he does.
Either way, we’re in a big mess.
It’s going to be really important that we work together to hold this society together — and this democracy. Shift the Country is set up to help with that. We’re pretty unique, too. Join us in one of our events, and help us out financially if you’re in a position to on our website or ActBlue. We’re just starting to raise $10,000 to get this thing anchored so we can ramp it up in 2023.
Be safe and be well. Onward.
Oh, my my. So much here. So much t-r-o-u-b-l-i-n-g here. I cringed when I heard the first report about Biden; my thought was, well, what can he say NOW about trump. And then the story kept getting worse. It really wasn't until later that I began to think about the larger implications for our security. And for our rule of law. Joe's just being Joe, shruggin' it off as "no big deal." It's a friggin' big deal! Especially when you combine it with the very real threats of the Republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. I know we all thought we were on dangerous ground when trump was president. I honestly think the ground is much, much shakier now. Joe may have all the best intentions, but I worry whether he can lead us out of this mess, one that he has very much contributed to himself.