Sleepy Joe kept the files at home too

[ROB]

Sorry folks, I don't make the rules.

If you skewered Trump for it, now you gotta skewer Biden.

If you defended Trump, now you gotta defend Biden.

This should be fun.

[gnaruki]

I've chocked it up to senility for the both of them.

What's with the bankers boxes of paper docs? Don't these guys have teams of assistants and scanners? They're over 80, so, opening pdfs might be challenging. Is copying the documents by any method an even greater offense than just taking them?

[Tarkan]

Rob, if people didn't have double standards, some of them wouldn't have standards at all.

I said, in the beginning when all the pearl clutching and mock outrage was coming from our resident DSA members here that it was almost certainly pretty common for VPs/Presidents to take classified info on their way out, either intentionally or accidentally.

It is funny though that Biden is apparently too old and forgetful to prosecute (but not too old to run for re-election), but Trump, 4 years his junior, doesn't quite make the age and senility cut off.

[Kurt]

But there are two differences between the old coots:

Biden did not get indicted. Trump did.

Biden didn't try to hide documents. He put them there and never moved the box. Trump knew they were coming and very likely had Walt move them to a place the Feebs were less likely to check (dumb people hiding things).

What is funny about this is how people say "see? These are the same!"

[Tarkan]

But there are two differences between the old coots:

Biden did not get indicted. Trump did.

Biden didn't try to hide documents. He put them there and never moved the box. Trump knew they were coming and very likely had Walt move them to a place the Feebs were less likely to check (dumb people hiding things).

What is funny about this is how people say "see? These are the same!"

Totally not the same. Biden had the classified documents, which he was in violation of felony law for possessing, in an unlocked garage to the house where his crack and meth addict son was "renting" and would regularly bring prostitutes to, out in the open and unsecured. Trump had classified documents which he might have been in violation of felony law (being President / ex-President muddies the waters since he was an OCA) in a locked closet in a building where Secret Service were present and presumably guarding the premises and the ex-President.

But, Biden "gets off" because the Special Prosecutor basically determined that Biden was incompetent to stand trial.

You never see Kurt not make excuses for Biden or rationalize away his crimes. It's sort of sad, but entirely predictable.

https://twitter.com/VDHanson/status/1756355165635088525

Biden removed files improperly both as a Senator and Vice President.

He held some of them in his unlawful possession for perhaps at least 14 years without a word to authorities, dating back at least to his departure from the Senate on January 15, 2009 when he resigned to become Vice President—or if not longer over his some 36-year Senate career.

In fact, in 2017 Biden was fully aware that he had wrongly removed these classified files. As Hur noted, there is a taped conversation on record between Biden and his ghostwriter to just that effect. Biden, at home in Virginia, was recorded as remarking, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs”.

And yet Biden apparently did nothing. He never came forward to any federal authorities for nearly the next five years.

So given that knowledge, why did the attorneys belatedly disclose Biden’s possession of the files on November 2, 2022? Civic virtue? Altruism? Respect for the law?"

[Kurt]

Ha! you quoted Victor David Hanson.

I am surprised he did not find a way to tie in Hunter Biden with Ancient Greece.

Remember how correct VDH was during Gulf War II? (he was not at all, then afterwards moved the goalpost when WMDs were not found) Remember how he wrote an article on "Race Realism" when he warned people about interacting with young, black men? He did this cuz he was mad that Eric Holder wrote about having a talk with his kids about interacting with police.

So I just don't give that fucker ANY credit. So much of the mistakes of the last 20 years is following a combination of VDH and Thomas Friedman that I refuse to consider them valuable in any way, shape or form. They can feel bad about how unfair I am by while looking at how much they got paid for being idiots.

[seektravelinfo]

Sorry folks, I don't make the rules.

If you skewered Trump for it, now you gotta skewer Biden.

If you defended Trump, now you gotta defend Biden.

This should be fun.

Biden doesn’t need to be defended because the Trump-appointed prosecutor (Robert Hur) selected to oversee the investigation of Biden has determined no criminal culpability on Biden’s part. Special Counsel Hur recommended that no charges be filed against Biden.
Understand? There’s nothing to defend.

Hur did overstep his bounds though by including in the official report his sweeping opinion of Biden’s mental faculties, just gratuitous gossip that he snuck in there. There are some GOP pissed about that too.

Ironic that Merrick Garland was the one that appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel, as he didn’t want to appear partisan by appointing a non-MAGA Special Counsel. So Robert Hur walks away with a participation trophy and his proof of loyalty to Trump.

[Tarkan]

Biden doesn’t need to be defended because the Trump-appointed prosecutor (Robert Hur) selected to oversee the investigation of Biden has determined no criminal culpability on Biden’s part. Special Counsel Hur recommended that no charges be filed against Biden.
Understand? There’s nothing to defend.

Robert Hur was appointed Special Prosecutor by Merrick Garland. He resigned as US Attorney of Maryland when Biden took office.

Hur recommended no charges be filed because:

1) Biden is the sitting President, and there is basically no provision for charging a sitting President (he would need to be impeached and convicted first).

Hur did overstep his bounds though by including in the official report his sweeping opinion of Biden’s mental faculties, just gratuitous gossip that he snuck in there.

Which brings up point #2:

2) His sweeping opinion of Biden's mental faculties related to his ability to secure a conviction against Biden, so they were relevant in his decision to not recommend charges for Biden.

The reality is, Biden knew he took unauthorized classified material from his time as a US Senator and his time as VP, because he bragged about it to his biographer in 2017. He failed to inform anyone of this until his own AG decided to go after Trump for keeping classified info. Only then did he decide maybe he should come clean and turn it over.

And, you have to be in deep fucking denial (don't worry, I know you and Kurt are) to not see the obvious and serious cognitive decline of Biden.

[ROB]

lol - the mental gymnastics of you all is fantastical.

[Kurt]

lol - the mental gymnastics of you all is fantastical.

Good thing you are here as the reasonable observer.
How about telling us again how both sides are bad and we can just middle-of-the-road our way out of hypocrisy?

[ROB]

Taking home classified documents is understandable to a point.

Keeping them there is not.

This is common fucking sense. It's not about law. It's not about morality. It's not about forgetting vs keeping.

It's about security.

See, this isn't difficult?

[Kurt]

Taking home classified documents is understandable to a point.

Keeping them there is not.

This is common fucking sense. It's not about law. It's not about morality. It's not about forgetting vs keeping.

It's about security.

See, this isn't difficult?

It is and the Special Council did not find a reason to charge him. That stuff about him being too senile to charge is bullshit. They would have brought it before a grand jury if a crime had been committed. It's not up to a Special Council's discretion to charge or not to charge when there is evidence of a crime.

No crime committed = No charge. See, this isn't difficult either.

[ROB]

You'll have to remind me what I said about law...

[Kurt]

You'll have to remind me what I said about law...

We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... hur-report

So he would not have been charged even if he had committed a crime because he is a sitting president.

But yah, Trump Vs. Biden??? That's a tough one cuz they both had classified documents. One got charged and the other did not. Must be because they are exactly the same and people are being unfair to Trump. So now I got to skewer Biden cuz if I don't I will be labeled a hypocrite and that is the worst thing that could happen to a Liberal.

[Tarkan]

Biden is President with a much more ideologically aligned DOJ supporting him. That's one key difference. Whereas Trump's DOJ had multiple members, along with the FBI, that were actively plotting against him before and after he took office. Rod Rosenstein being one of them. And who did Hur work for? For Rosenstein on the bullshit collusion investigation.

In any event, Biden was in possession of multiple classified documents he was not authorized to have access to. Same crime that Petraeus plead guilty to when the Obama admin decided they wanted to get rid of him. That's not a legal debate. Biden was in violation of the law.

Trump was in possession of multiple classified documents where it's not entirely clear (because Trump is an OCA and no President has ever been gone after by the establishment the way they have gone after Trump) if he was authorized to or not. That is a legal debate, and I'm sure it will be tested at trial.

Aside from that, the big difference is Biden is part of the deep state uniparty, and the government has rallied around him to protect him, and Trump was, from the perspective of the deep state, an infection, and it rallied to kick him out. Everything else is window dressing.