In reply to: The Biden Classified Materials Report is Out. posted by EricCartman
Trump’s main offense is obstruction of justice.
He refused to cooperate. He directly defied a subpoena. He actively hid the documents from federal agents.
Had he said, “Oops, my bad.” And turned over the documents when they were first requested there would never have been any issue.
They aren’t in any way comparable.
...They aren't identical or substantially similar overall, because there are aspects of each case that are very materially distinguishable.
I'm not saying that Biden couldn't be prosecuted once out of office. Petraeus pled to a misdemeanor with a few years of probation and a nominal fine.
Mike Pence also might be in the ambit of Petraeus's "one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material," as it is fair, I think, to assume that the way classified documents got to Pence's house in Indiana was that Pence brought them there--whether by mistake or not, that would be "unauthorized removal"; and by keeping them there, "retention."
As far as I can tell, neither Biden nor Pence lied to the FBI about their use of the materials, as Petraeus apparently did, so the latter's case would merit a somewhat greater penalty.
So charge him with obstruction and that's it, while making the reasons for that charge clear.
Regardless, the committee would have been better served without the "he's just a nice old man who loves old documents" part of it.
It’s the equivalent of not prosecuting a clean cut white guy while throwing the book at the impoverished black guy because you think the jury will find the black guy guilty.
after the documents were discovered. The lengths Trump went to in order to hide the fact he had them is certainly different. The fact that he lied and said he had turned over everything when he hadnt is certainly different.
The AP article I linked below lays out the timeline pretty well.
Now if you want to compare Biden to David Petraeus you probably have a stonger case.
Because other than likability, that's the difference here.
Most of the charges are for hiding, lying, not complying with requests and subpoenas, etc.
I think Lindsey Graham was one person complaining that what happened was not espionage. The only problem is the statute actually defines the willful and continued possession of the classified documents as espionage. It may seem unfair in this context but certainly can understand why it might be written like that. Avoids the government being required to prove they were shared with anyone.
Of course Lindsey never thought to change the statute he finds so wrong during his almost 30 years in DC.