Classified documents: An unnecessary scandal
By Julieta Grané | February 7On Nov. 2 2022, President Joe Biden’s legal team found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The approximately 10 documents contained material marked as sensitive from the president’s tenure as Obama’s vice president and prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the president’s handling of the classified documents. Biden and his personal lawyers have been “cooperating fully” with the Department of Justice’s investigation. On Jan. 16, about a week after the appointment of the special counsel, another series of classified documents were discovered at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Carmel, Ind. As of the writing of this article, a special counsel has not been assigned to investigate Pence’s classified materials; however, he publicly claimed “full responsibility” for the misplacing of the documents. A third investigation of classified documents in a public official’s personal residence predates the former two and involves former President Donald Trump. This situation is unique in that the response from Trump’s legal time was hostile and uncooperative: Trump spent 18 months obstructing and hindering the DOJ’s investigation.
