Even Pence had classified documents

[Norman Bernstein]

I think Obama ought to invite the FBI into his homes, as well… along with Bush. Let’s get it over with.


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[Nicholas Carey]

It does make one think that policies around the handling of classified documents at the White House might be Judy a bit lax, doesn't it?

[Joe (SoCal)]

Listening to a former director of national security on NPR and she laid out the real problem with classified documents. The problem is EVERYTHING is marked classified, because it's easy and you can't screw up and not mark something classified that is supposed to be legitimately classified, so there are just tons and tons and tons of banal stuff thats marked classified and the pile keeps growing by tons a day.

[George Jung]

*wouldn't it be nice* if they would outline exactly what/how important those documents were - both for trump, and President Biden.

*doesn't fit their agenda

[Nicholas Carey]

Listening to a former director of national security on NPR and she laid out the real problem with classified documents. The problem is EVERYTHING is marked classified, because it's easy and you can't screw up and not mark something classified that is supposed to be legitimately classified, so there are just tons and tons and tons of banal stuff thats marked classified and the pile keeps growing by tons a day.

And a lot of stuff is classified, not because it's national-security sensitive, but because it's job-security sensitive. People in positions of power don't want potentially embarrassing information getting out, so they classify it. The poster child for that is (are?) The Pentagon Papers.

[Jim Bow]

I might have mentioned before, but the list of E-2 sailors who had the daily sweep-down of work spaces at USNAVCOMSTA ADAK was stamped "SECRET".

[Nicholas Carey]

I might have mentioned before, but the list of E-2 sailors who had the daily sweep-down of work spaces at USNAVCOMSTA ADAK was stamped "SECRET".

I can sort of see that, or at least the rational behind it: if sone's looking to turn a sailor , the list of guys doing after-hours cleaning might a good starting point.

[JimD]

Time to exhume a few bodies. Reagan probably took classified documents to his grave. Literally.

[skuthorp]

It's an easy way of avoiding responsibility for decisions made.Just say no, or in this situation 'secret'.

[Yeadon]

I bet Pence had the UFO docs squirreled away. Mother was always interested in aliens.

[Too Little Time]

It does make one think that policies around the handling of classified documents at the White House might be Judy a bit lax, doesn't it?

As the news reported :

There is an ungodly number of documents that exist in the White House and elsewhere that are required to be turned over to the National Archives as soon as the new president is put into office. It is just a mess. No matter how much one might like it to be handled better, it is just a mess. A lot of stuff just gets missed.

[ron ll]

One of the late night comics showed Carter insulating Habitat for Humanity houses with top secret docs.

[Jim Bow]

I can sort of see that, or at least the rational behind it: if sone's looking to turn a sailor , the list of guys doing after-hours cleaning might a good starting point.

Except, that person would have had to travel 1200 miles from the mainland, and either landed at a military controlled airport, or docked at a U S Navy base, and then walked 10 miles to the COMSTA and entered the building pastvthe armed Marine guard, in order to see the SECRET janitor list.

[Ian McColgin]

There's a difference between absent-mindedly keeping or even retaining for future reference "secret" papers and deliberately stealing and lying about them. Almost everyone of high executive office has done the former. Only one has been found to have done the latter.

[Rich Jones]

At least this should take some of the heat off Biden.
GOP can't complain now that everyone knows Pence did it also.

[Paul Pless]

GOP can't complain now that everyone knows Pence did it also.

<snort>

[TomF]

George Conway suggested that Garland expand Robert Hur's mandate as Special Counsel to include Pence's documents too.

[rbgarr]

I'd think classified documents would be returned (by someone assigned to do it) to whatever secure sources they came from at the end of each working day. It sounds like classification was not taken all that seriously and perhaps overdone as it's been suggested as the reason for some of this laxity.

[TomF]

The problem isn't a lack of well considered protocols for handling documents. Such protocols exist already, though I read recently that there aren't tracking processes until you get up to a certain classification level. Which surprised the hell out of me.

The problem isn't the explosive growth in the number of classified documents either, though again, apparently some thousands of pages of documents are classified every day, one way or another. Making them intrinsically ferociously difficult to keep clarity about.

The problem in these cases are the rank of the principals who received the documents. Whose rank will either overtly or subconsciously dissuade staff (who brought the documents in following protocols) from demanding the documents back (to be safeguarded following protocols).

It's exaggerated within the formal and chain-of-command deference expected within national security organizations, but it's not so different from what we're seeing around the SCOTUS justices, eh?

Who has the authority to demand that the unaccountable-to-any-individual-person boss is accountable?

[Jim Mahan]

Along with the notion that tons of stuff is classified that shouldn't be, just in order to not overlook something that might otherwise be missed, and beside the notion that some stuff gets classified that shouldn't, in order to hide incriminating evidence, both of which are probably in reality overblown by the general public, IE, there's prolly less of it than the rhetoric would indicate, there are many legitimately different domains of work that need to have documentation classified. The DIA overseeing the military branches intelligence gathering has different reasons or justifications than, say domestic agencies, like the FBI, or even the Department of the Interior. And the White House has to interact with and document business with lots of different agencies for a variety of reasons. As I mentioned previously, the grunts and clerks and agents all have a different security paradigm than agency or bureau heads or cabinet secretaries. It's easy to understand that the latter would need to rely on junior staff to keep track of stuff, especially when the business of the day includes responding to or managing some crisis that needs policy-maker level decisions, communications and documentation for all of it in real time.

And of course, Biden, Pence, Ike, Truman, et al, and even trmp, might understandably have gotten some classified stuff honestly mishandled, or even thought to retain some particular bits for their personal reasons (against the rules) but only trmp had tons of highly sensitive classified stuff he probably had no good reason to see even when he was in office, and which he took and hid demonstrably deliberately, and then lied about and obstructed the legitimate authorities trying to retrieve them, and with criminal intent.

Of course he did. And of course none of the others did.

[George Jung]

Rumor has it GW is getting kinda anxious.....

[Jim Bow]

I’ll bet Jimmy Carter doesn’t have any.

[John Smith]

I suspect they all have some in their offices/homes.

There's a difference between some of this stuff simply not being returned vs intentionally taking it.

Not that this will matter.

[Jim Mahan]

I suspect they all have some in their offices/homes.

There's a difference between some of this stuff simply not being returned vs intentionally taking it.

Not that this will matter.

I think you might be too cynical, about this, John. Meaning, I think nothing but a clean conclusion and then spurious allegations of coverup by the Rs, regarding Biden, and likely Pence, but I still think trmp is going to be prosecuted for his, way over the top crime, but his is going to be dragged out in the public news cycles because of the particulars, so much actual stuff taken, the various investigative efforts and obstruction efforts, etc. I also think this is the issue of the many of trmp's criminal activities and resultant legal exposures, that will be 'first blood,' starting an avalanche of trmp prosecutions. I think, if he lives long enough, we'll get to see him reappear in court, in manacles and orange jumpsuit more than once, for various things.

[johnw]

I'm starting to feel left out. Why don't I have any classified documents?

[TomF]

I’ll bet Jimmy Carter doesn’t have any.

He had them in his heart though.

[CWSmith]

It's like there's a secret documents fairy who goes around sprinkling them in private homes and garages.

Colbert said that public libraries keep track of their books better than our government tracks secret documents.

[Canoeyawl]

I bet Pence had the UFO docs squirreled away. Mother was always interested in aliens.

Yes, but I think her real interest may have been in the anal probes

[Bflat]

I'm starting to feel left out. Why don't I have any classified documents?

How do you know you don't?

[hawkeye54]

I'm starting to feel left out. Why don't I have any classified documents?

'Cause none of your neighbors wanted to answer the questions posed by the FBI canvassers when they came to ask them about you ? ?

[elf]

At this point it seems to me that the problem is that every one of them went off with boxes of paper without knowing what was in them - including Trump. The difference seems, on the surface, to be that only Trump resisted returning the stuff when asked.

To me the real difference lies in the personalities of the people involved. Biden and Pence, I suspect, are the organized, tidy, thoughtful types who mentally work all the time to keep their worlds from becoming chaotic. (Yes, the worlds they operate in aren't the same except in that respect.)

Trump, as we all well know, suffers not only from a grossly inflated sense of his own importance and significance, but in addition, whether deliberately or because he's had serious attention deficit issues his entire life, leaves a trail of chaos in his wake, and, because of the first of those, is wildly protective of his sense of personal privacy. He behaves like the child who's been found doing something wrong and immediately starts a song and dance routine, even when he has no idea of what the thing is he is being reprimanded for.

So instead of cooperating when asked he did his little routine of covering up for the something naughty.

The child needs stroking all the time, so he does strings of things in hopes of getting the attention and approval he so desperately needs. None of it is thought through, none of it is planned, he's just the Squiggle in the story of The Dot and The Line.

We all know people who spend their lives being Squiggles - always got something cooking, big plans, lots of talk, but in the end boozing in the bar and talking big, still sleeping on someone's couch and doesn't know what his kids are up to, can't quite make it to his daughter's wedding etc. "Well, you know dad." That's Trump - the person who couldn't make Atlantic City casinos successful because the 10 foot tall painting of himself made him feel good.

[johnw]

How do you know you don't?

Do you think I could get the FBI in to organize my papers? They are a bit of a mess...

[johnw]

At this point it seems to me that the problem is that every one of them went off with boxes of paper without knowing what was in them - including Trump.

I very much doubt this is the case with Trump.

[johnw]

'Cause none of your neighbors wanted to answer the questions posed by the FBI canvassers when they came to ask them about you ? ?

You're just trying to make me feel better.

[Boatbum]

At least this should take some of the heat off Biden.
GOP can't complain now that everyone knows Pence did it also.

Or...maybe it was wrong for any Vice President to remove classified documents form the White House. And is does not mitigate that fact that Biden's were spread out all over the place including his garage in Delaware, and it was like that for 6 years, not two like Pence.

However I do agree that way too many things are considered classified. I don't think anyone should be hung out to dry for this unless they are selling them to foreign states. I'll bet all Presidents for the last 40 years or more have done this, why make an issue of it now?