President Biden’s Document Probe Shows Bad Memory

     President Biden has been accused of holding classified documents from his years as vice president recently. Before becoming president, Joe Biden held office as the Vice President under Barack Obama. During that time, Biden is being accused of taking classified documents to his personal home after leaving his seat as Vice President. While his age is not lost on anybody, Biden has insisted that his memory has not been impacted. According to Max Matza for the BBC, “Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur found that Mr. Biden had improperly kept classified documents related to military and foreign policy in Afghanistan after serving as vice-president. The scathing 345-page report, released earlier in the day, said the president's memory had "significant limitations"” (Matza).

       As a start, it should be noted that Biden was not found to be guilty of willfully taking classified documents from his time as the vice president. President Biden willfully returned the classified documents in his home and cooperated fully with the investigation. The official report found that Biden had taken some classified documents during his vice presidency and speaking of the classified documents to a ghostwriter for his biography. Not only does Biden reject the claims, but he is offended by the accusation against his ability to remember. Some voters are reacting negatively to how Biden’s case was handled by the Department of Justice.

    This is very different from another former president accused of taking classified documents, Donald Trump. Trump was accused of taking classified documents with him after his presidency. Alanna Durkin Richer for The Associated Press wrote, ““Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” the report said” (Richer). The difference is that Mr. Trump, according to the report, obstructed the Justice Department from retrieving the classified documents and refused to return the documents to the federal government.

     Regardless of the differences, some voters believe that the difference in treatment of the two cases shows favoritism in American politics. Peter Charalambous wrote an article for ABC News that said, ““One of the vaguest areas of national security law and enforcement of it is how to handle retention cases," said Brian Greer, a former CIA lawyer who is now a partner at Greenberg Traurig. "Frankly, retention of classified information happens way more than it should, and the government's just not going to prosecute every case” (Charalambous). While the quote doesn’t show exact proof, it is interesting to think about. How will Biden’s response be used against him politically? It will certainly be an interesting election year for the United States coming in November.

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