Sen. Durbin Says Classified Documents Cost Biden “High Ground”
By Nikki Slusher
Remember when politicians would leave office without taking things that didn’t belong to them? I miss those days. Such simpler times.
On Sunday Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) joined CNN to discuss the implications of the classified documents found in President Biden’s office. Sen. Durbin rejected the comparisons made about Biden and Trump’s document debacles, however, he did acknowledge that the scandal has cost President Biden the “high ground” in the discourse over the storage of documents.
“Of course. Let’s be honest about it,” Sen. Durbin told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” when Bash asked if President Biden had “lost the high ground on this notion of classified information being where it shouldn’t be.”
“When that information is found, it diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it because it’s not supposed to happen,” Sen. Durbin said. “Whether it was the fault of a staffer or an attorney, it makes no difference. The elected official bears ultimate responsibility.”
“Donald Trump defied those who knew the documents were in place and ultimately led to, involuntarily, a court order and a search of his Mar-a-Lago hotel resort to find out how many documents were there,” the senator said.
“Contrast that with Joe Biden. Embarrassed by the situation, as he should have been, he invited the government agencies in to carefully look through all the boxes he had accumulated. It’s a much different approach,” the Illinois Senator added. “It is outrageous that either occurred. But the reaction by the former president and the current president could not be in sharper contrast.”
Biden’s lawyers and team have been upfront and forthcoming about the discovery. Since then, they’ve been cooperating with investigators to resolve the issue. Trump on the other hand has continued his efforts regarding his classified documents that he allegedly declassified with his very big brain. Either way, neither of them should’ve had the documents after leaving office. I believe that for Biden the situation will end much better as the malintent seems to be nonexistent.
We also don’t know the full extent to which kinds of documents were discovered by Biden’s lawyers. With Trump we know he had top secret information on nuclear weapons and related intelligence on European Allie’s. Additionally, Trump and his lawyers falsely claimed they turned all documents back over which was proven false when federal officials raided Mar-a-Lago in August and found a plethora of more documents.
I’m curious to see how this plays out. Personally if Biden is found to be in the wrong and it wasn’t an accident, then Democratic leaders must do the right thing and hold him accountable. While I don’t think this will result in Biden leaving office, we must ensure a thorough investigation is completed in order to move forward. Unlike the GOP and Trump, the Democrats don’t tend to follow Biden blindly. I just think the timing is a little convenient and how did the National Archives not realize the materials were not returned nearly seven years ago? It just doesn’t make sense.
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