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      How will Biden handle a hostile Republican House and what does it mean for 2024?

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      AnalysisHow will Biden handle a hostile Republican House and what does it mean for 2024?Lauren Gambino in Washington As Republicans threaten to ensnare the president in investigations and legislative brinkmanship, Biden is touting bipartisanshipAfter a bruising fight over the House speakership, newly empowered Republicans officially set to work this week on what they say is a mandate to hold Joe Biden and his administration to account.Republicans launch investigations into Biden’s handling of classified papersRead moreSeveral of the president’s chief antagonists took control of powerful committees, eager to use their subpoena power to frustrate and undermine the president, his administration and his family.Republicans approved the formation of a subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government”, to serve as a main vehicle for scrutinizing the administration. They launched an investigation of the Afghanistan withdrawal and commissioned a panel to look into the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. At least one Republican filed articles of impeachment against Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, over his handling of migration at the southern border.On Friday, ​the House judiciary committee​, led by Jim Jordan of Ohio, a fierce ally of Donald Trump, ​​opened an investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents​,​ vowing an aggressive inquiry into a matter Republicans hope will damage the president as he prepares ​​a likely re-election bid.​After a chaotic start marked by infighting and discord, Republicans appeared to have unified around a common target: Biden.In his first remarks as speaker, Kevin McCarthy said Republicans would “be a check and provide some balance on Biden’s policies”, using the “power of the purse” and the “power of the subpoena”.Yet even as ​Biden’s political foes threaten to ensnare him in a web of politically charged investigations and high-stakes legislative brinkmanship, the president himself has embraced a less confrontational approach, focused on promoting his achievements and touting bipartisanship.“Now the House has elected a new speaker,” Biden said, “and I called and congratulated him and I’m ready to work with him or any Republican in Congress to make progress for the American people.”​On Friday, the White House said Biden accepted McCarthy’s “kind invitation” ​to deliver a State of the Union address​ on 7​ February.Whether such shows of comity lead to bipartisan cooperation, political conflict or both will prove a critical test for Biden in a divided government over the next two years.Far-right Republicans who won concessions from McCarthy in exchange for their support for speaker have raised the specter of government shutdowns or even a debt-default as a means of forcing spending cuts, and vowed to examine the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Some have called for the president to be impeached.Americans should brace for a “period of ugly conflict” in Washington that echoes early clashes between Bill Clinton and the Republican speaker Newt Gingrich, whose party stormed to victory in the 1994 midterms, said Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.Gingrich’s conservative majority ushered in an era of political gridlock that culminated in a 21-day shutdown. But, Riley said, Clinton presented himself as the “voice of reason”, demonstrating a willingness to compromise but not capitulate. He easily won re-election in 1996.Barack Obama also played on themes of Republican intransigence to win re-election in 2012, after Democrats lost the House in 2010.Riley, who has examined how presidents navigate divided government, said a hostile Republican House could prove an effective foil for Biden should he seek a second term.“This will be a burden to Biden in the short-run – he’s yoked by the constitution to a dysfunctional governing partner – but it will benefit him in 2024,” he said. “Most of the country will not rally to the incendiaries.”Biden sought to offer a contrast last week, visiting a dilapidated bridge in Kentucky to tout a $1.2tn infrastructure bill signed into law with Republican support, even as McCarthy suffered rounds of humiliating defeats in his quest to be speaker. Biden was joined by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicans.The president then traveled to the US-Mexico border, as Republicans blame his immigration policies for the record number of migrants crossing into the country. This week, Biden wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that urged Congress to work together to hold big tech accountable.“There will be many policy issues we disagree on in the new Congress,” he wrote, “but bipartisan proposals to protect our privacy and our children; to prevent discrimination, sexual exploitation, and cyberstalking; and to tackle anticompetitive conduct shouldn’t separate us.”Biden has emphasized his willingness to work with the Republican House but he has also drawn red lines. A slate of tax-related proposals, he said, would make inflation worse.“I’m ready to work with Republicans but not on this kind of stuff,” Biden said on Thursday, promising a veto.The White House also shot down any suggestion it would circumvent Congress to avoid a debt-default.“Attempts to exploit the debt ceiling as leverage will not work,” the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters. “There will be no hostage-taking.”‘Always a double standard’The discovery of classified documents at Biden’s home in Delaware and an office in Washington has already pushed his relationship with hostile House Republicans into further jeopardy. On Thursday, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter. Biden said he was “cooperating fully and completely”.Republicans seized on the revelations, accusing Biden of hypocrisy for his criticism of Trump after FBI agents retrieved classified materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Trump to ramp up efforts to secure 2024 Republican nomination after slow startRead more“There’s always a double standard,” tweeted Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, asking: “Where’s the raid of Biden’s garage?”Though such attacks ignore the significant legal differences between the two cases, they have nevertheless energized Republicans determined to puncture Biden’s stretch of good fortune after a historically strong midterm performance by Democrats.In November, Democrats expanded their Senate majority and blunted losses in the House, despite Biden’s low approval ratings and widespread economic angst. Emboldened by the elections, Biden said he saw no reason to change his approach.He has argued that support for his agenda, including a hard-won health and climate law passed despite unified Republican opposition, would only grow as the policies take effect over the next two years.“We’ve made some real progress,” Biden said before a cabinet meeting last week. “But now we need to focus on implementing the big laws we actually passed so that the American people can feel the benefits of what we’ve done.”Still, a divided Congress leaves little opportunity for progress on campaign promises Democrats were not able to enact when they controlled both chambers. Progressives are calling on Biden to use executive actions to prove his commitment to issues he ran on in 2020 and to make the case for 2024.Progressive lawmakers have called on the president to take action on issues including climate, abortion, workers’ rights and marijuana reform.“In the last Congress there were definitely moments when President Biden was holding back on executive action to leave lots of room and space for Congress to act,” said Mary Small, national advocacy director of Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization.“None of that should be happening now.”TopicsJoe BidenHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republicans launch investigations into Biden’s handling of classified papers

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      Republicans launch investigations into Biden’s handling of classified papersHouse judiciary committee makes announcement after special counsel appointed to look into the case Republicans on the House judiciary committee on Friday announced an investigation into the discovery of classified documents at Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former office in Washington DC.The GOP representatives, newly in control of committees after their party took the House last November, made their move a day after the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the matter.In a letter to Garland, the judiciary committee chair, Jim Jordan of Ohio, said: “We are conducting oversight of the justice department’s actions with respect to former vice-president Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington DC private office and in the garage of his residence in Wilmington.Classified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?Read more“On 12 January 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry.”The letter noted that the documents were discovered just before the midterm elections, and accused the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances”, namely the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.A special counsel, Jack Smith, has been investigating Trump since November – an announcement made after the midterm elections.The Republican congressmen demanded Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The judiciary committee investigation was the second announced by House Republicans since the documents’ discovery was reported this week.The first is being pursued by the new oversight committee chair, James Comer, a Kentuckian who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the Biden White House.Earlier on Friday, Comer sent the White House a demand for information about whether Hunter Biden, the president’s son who is a magnet for Republican investigations and accusations, had access to the garage at the Delaware residence.An oversight committee tweet said: “We have doc[ument]s revealing this address appeared on Hunter’s driver’s license as recently as 2018, the same time he was cutting deals with foreign adversaries. Time for answers.”Even before Biden took office, Republicans tried to find evidence of corruption in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and of his father’s involvement. Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine were at issue in Trump’s attempts to procure dirt on Joe Biden, a scheme which led to the first of Trump’s two impeachments.Such efforts to ensnare Joe Biden via his son have achieved mixed results at best but this week’s revelations about classified documents in the elder Biden’s possession have produced new lines of attack.Speaking to CBS, Jordan said: “Right now there are tons of questions. A lot of those I think will be answered in the intelligence committee and the oversight committee. But we’ll be looking at the justice department component.”A third committee joined the hunt on Friday, with a letter to defense officials from Mike Rogers, the chair of the House armed services committee.The proliferating investigations have provided a new headache for Democrats in Congress.The party has been on a roll, doing much better in the November midterms than expected, before the gifts of Republican disarray in the House and a surprisingly quiet presidential campaign from Trump.Asked on CNN on Friday if he believed Biden broke the law by retaining classified documents, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said: “It’s much too early to tell.“I think President Biden has handled this correctly. He’s fully cooperated with the prosecutors … it’s a total contrast to President Trump, who stonewalled for a whole year.”Schumer called for patience.“We should let it play out, we don’t have to push [the special counsels] in any direction or try to influence them,” he said. “Let [them] do their job.”Schumer said he supported the appointment of Robert Hur in the Biden case.TopicsJoe BidenRepublicansUS politicsMerrick GarlandHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats plan defense as Republicans ramp up investigations into president and Hunter Biden – as it happened

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      Republicans on the House judiciary committee have announced their own investigation of the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, sending a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding details of the inquiry.“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence. On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry,” the committee’s chair Jim Jordan along with congressman Mike Johnson said in a letter.The letter notes that the documents were first discovered just before the midterm elections in November, and accuses the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances,” notable the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The committee members demand Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The investigation is the second to be announced by the House GOP since reports of the documents’ discovery first emerged this week. The other is being pursued by James Comer of the oversight committee, who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the White House.Donald Trump’s organization was fined $1.6m by a judge after being convicted of tax fraud charges, but the Manhattan district attorney hinted that’s not the end of his investigation into the former president’s businesses. Meanwhile in Washington, House Republicans demanded more information about the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, while the top Senate Democrat said special counsel Robert Hur should be allowed to look into the matter without interference.Here’s what happened today:
      Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, according to a new book about his presidency.
      Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warned the US government will soon hit its debt limit, and could run out of money by June.
      Special counsel Jack Smith wants to talk to two people hired by Trump’s attorneys to look for any secret materials in his possession.
      Congress will convene for the annual State of the Union address on 7 February.
      Who is George Santos really? Two Daily Beast reporters try to get to the bottom of the fabulist congressman’s saga in an interview with the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast.
      Last week, the much-talked-about George Santos of New York was sworn into the House. The Democrats and even some Republicans think he should have resigned after he admitted to lying about a lot of things during his campaign.So who is the real George Santos? How likely is it that he’ll see out his full term in office? And does his success tell us more about the state of US politics than it does an individual’s misgivings? Jonathan Freedland and Will Bredderman of the Daily Beast discuss the man behind the lies on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast:Politics Weekly AmericaCan George Santos outrun his lies? Politics Weekly AmericaSorry your browser does not support audio – but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:29:31Attorney general Merrick Garland has asked Robert Hur to handle the investigation into Biden’s classified documents, putting a justice department veteran whose most recent government service was as a Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in a role that could upend his presidency.Semafor reports that Democrats remember his work as US attorney for Maryland fondly. “He handled himself with real professionalism when he was U.S. attorney in Maryland,” the state’s Democratic senator Ben Cardin said, while Jamie Raskin, a House Democrat from the state and noted Trump foe, said Hur had a “good reputation.”Rod Rosenstein, who was deputy attorney general under Trump, said Hur was his “point person” for dealing with one of the men the former president liked least: Robert Mueller, the special counsel who led the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.The House armed services committee is also requesting details about the classified documents found in Joe Biden’s possession.The committee’s Republican chair Mike Rogers earlier this week wrote to two defense officials requesting details on what the documents contained, and how they had been handled.You can read the letter below:Read the full letter here ⬇️https://t.co/Y98CJppa8M pic.twitter.com/7Yz5uCZqdV— Armed Services GOP (@HASCRepublicans) January 12, 2023
      Needless to say, this is turning into a headache for Democrats in Congress.The party has been on a roll lately, doing much better in the November midterms than expected and then being gifted with Republican disarray in the House and a surprisingly quiet presidential campaign from Donald Trump.Now, they’re back to playing defense after Joe Biden was found to be doing something similar to what has gotten Trump into so much trouble: possessing classified documents. There are substantial differences to the two cases, but party leaders nonetheless are being called upon to answer for their president.“It’s much too early to tell,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer today replied on CNN, when asked if he believes Biden broke the law. “I think president Biden has handled this correctly. He’s fully cooperated with the prosecutors … it’s total contrast to president Trump, who stonewalled for a whole year.”With special prosecutors looking into both men’s cases, Schumer called for patience. “We should let it play out, we don’t have to push them in any direction or try to influence them,” he said. “Let the special prosecutors do their job,” Schumer said, adding that he supports the appointment of Robert Hur to that role in the Biden case.You can watch the full interview here:Republicans on the House judiciary committee have announced their own investigation of the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, sending a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding details of the inquiry.“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence. On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry,” the committee’s chair Jim Jordan along with congressman Mike Johnson said in a letter.The letter notes that the documents were first discovered just before the midterm elections in November, and accuses the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances,” notable the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The committee members demand Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The investigation is the second to be announced by the House GOP since reports of the documents’ discovery first emerged this week. The other is being pursued by James Comer of the oversight committee, who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the White House.Joe Biden will make the annual State of the Union speech on 7 February, after the president accepted a formal invitation from House speaker Kevin McCarthy:It is my solemn obligation to invite the president to speak before a Joint Session of Congress on February 7th so that he may fulfill his duty under the Constitution to report on the state of the union. pic.twitter.com/YBmzLxs3Iz— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) January 13, 2023
      In a statement confirming his attendance, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struck a bipartisan tone. “The President is grateful for and accepts Speaker McCarthy’s prompt invitation to address the peoples’ representatives in Congress,” she said. “He looks forward to speaking with Republicans, Democrats, and the country about how we can work together to continue building an economy that works from the bottom up and the middle out, keep boosting our competitiveness in the world, keep the American people safe, and bring the country together.”Looping back to Donald Trump’s legal troubles, here’s a little more about the situation in New York and beyond.The Trump Organization’s sentencing doesn’t end Trump’s battle with Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who said the sentencing “closes this important chapter of our ongoing investigation into the former president and his businesses. We now move on to the next chapter,” the Associated Press writes.Bragg, in office for little more than a year, inherited the Trump Organization case and the investigation into the former president from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr.At the same time, New York attorney general Letitia James is suing Trump and the Trump Organization, alleging they misled banks and others about the value of its many assets, including golf courses and skyscrapers – a practice she dubbed the “art of the steal” – a parody of Trump’s long-ago bestselling ghostwritten book about getting rich The Art of the Deal.James, a Democrat, is asking a court to ban Trump and his three eldest children from running any New York-based company and is seeking to fine them at least $250 million. A judge has set an October trial date and appointed a monitor for the company while the case is pending.Trump faces several other legal challenges as he ramps up his presidential campaign.A special grand jury in Atlanta has investigated whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Last month, the House January 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in sparking the violent insurrection at the US Capitol. The FBI is also investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents.During last year’s Trump Org trial, assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors that Trump himself had a role in the fraud scheme, showing them a lease that the Republican signed himself for now-convicted finance chief Allen Weisselberg’s perk apartment that was kept off the tax books.“Mr Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Steinglass argued.Joe Biden this weekend will become the first sitting US president to speak at a Sunday service at Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was a pastor.Biden is expected to address the ongoing struggle to protect voting rights in the US, despite his failure a year ago to persuade Congress to pass key related legislation, to the exasperation of activists and organizers, especially in Georgia and the south.At the White House press briefing ongoing now, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, now senior adviser for public engagement at the White House, talked of the importance of the president’s visit this Sunday, ahead of Martin Luther King Day, the federal holiday that marks the birthday of the assassinated icon.She said that there was “more work to do” to protect democracy and acknowledged that the Biden administration’s two pieces of voting rights legislation have not made it through Congress.She noted that Biden has been invited to the church by Georgia’s recently re-elected Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, who is a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist church. The church was also regularly attended by the late congressman and lifelong civil rights activist John Lewis.Biden will meet members of King’s family and leaders of the civil rights movement in Atlanta during his visit on Sunday and Monday.Lance Bottoms joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who pointed out that she and the former mayor are examples of “Black women who have broken barriers” on the shoulders of the civil rights movement.Donald Trump’s organization was fined $1.6m by a judge after being convicted of tax fraud charges, but the Manhattan district attorney hinted that’s not the end of his investigation into the former president’s businesses. Meanwhile in Washington, the Treasury secretary warned the US government will hit its legal borrowing limit on Thursday and could default in the summer, unless Congress acts to increase it. Republicans controlling the House have said they won’t cooperate unless government spending is cut, ensuring this is going to turn into a big fight at some point.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Joe Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, according to a new book about his presidency.
      The top House Republican government watchdog is trying to link his investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings with the inquiry into classified documents found at the president’s properties.
      Special counsel Jack Smith wants to talk to two people hired by Trump’s attorneys to look for any secret materials in his possession.
      The US government will hit the legal limit on how much debt it can carry on 19 January, but it should have enough money to operate until at least early June, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said Friday.“I am writing to inform you that beginning on Thursday, January 19, 2023, the outstanding debt of the United States is projected to reach the statutory limit. Once the limit is reached, Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” the secretary wrote in a letter to Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy.“While Treasury is not currently able to provide an estimate of how long extraordinary measures will enable us to continue to pay the government’s obligations, it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”Republicans in the House have signaled they won’t agree to increase the debt ceiling unless the Biden administration and its Democratic allies in Congress agree to reduce spending, though it remains unclear what areas of the budget the GOP wants to cut. Raising the borrowing limit is one of the few pieces of leverage House Republicans have over the Democrats, but the strategy is not without risks. A failure to increase the ceiling could lead to the United States defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history, likely with serious consequences for the economy.The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee is attempting to make two alleged scandals into one: the investigation of classified materials found at Joe Biden’s properties, and their inquiry into his son Hunter Biden’s business activities.The committee’s chair James Comer has sent the White House a new demand for information about whether Hunter had access to the garage at Joe Biden’s Delaware residence where it was revealed yesterday some classified material was found:🚨 @RepJamesComer presses the White House about classified docs stashed at Biden’s Wilmington home.We have docs revealing this address appeared on Hunter’s driver’s license as recently as 2018, the same time he was cutting deals with foreign adversaries.Time for answers. pic.twitter.com/663qG3REm4— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) January 13, 2023
      Even before Biden took office, Republicans have been trying to find evidence of corruption in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and of his father’s involvement. They have had mixed results in doing that, but this week’s revelations that classified materials were found at Biden’s residence and an office he once used in Washington DC have given them new material to attack his administration. Yesterday, the justice department appointed a special counsel to look into the matter.The trial of members of the Proud Boys militia group over their involvement in the January 6 insurrection is continuing in Washington DC, today with testimony from a Capitol police officer.Thomas Loyd’s testimony contains fresh reminders of the violence that day, as Politico reports:Radio transmissions show Capiotl Police leaders pleading with officers to get off the inaugural stage scaffolding, worried it was going to collapse. “If they’re going to lock the capitol down, we can’t be up here when they breach,” someone yells.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 13, 2023
      “They’re coming and we can’t stop them from breaching,” someone else says on the radio, as police were overwhelmed near the lower west terrace. There were repeated concerns about lack of “hard gear” for officers to defend themselves.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 13, 2023
      Joe Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, fearing that some of them remain loyal to Donald Trump, Vox reports, citing a new book about his presidency.“The Fight of His Life” by Chris Whipple chronicles the past two years of Biden’s presidency from a positive perspective, according to Vox, and in particular shows the degree to which he loathes his predecessor. Biden, for instance, believes the White House’s Resolute desk was “tainted” by Trump’s use and unsuccessfully asked to swap it out for one used by Democratic icon Franklin D Roosevelt.When it comes to the Secret Service, he minds what he says around them, believing that agents harbor sympathies for the former president. He also thinks they lied about an incident where his dog Major bit an agent. Reached by Vox, the White House wouldn’t comment directly on the book’s content. More

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      White House pledges to cooperate with special counsel over classified documents – as it happened

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      Here’s the Guardian’s David Smith on what little we know about the reports that emerged yesterday of a second batch of classified materials found somewhere linked to Joe Biden, and how it compares to what was found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort:Joe Biden was facing fresh scrutiny over his handling of government secrets on Wednesday after a second batch of classified materials was reportedly found at a location linked to him.The White House was already on the defensive after revelations that classified documents were discovered last November in an office used by Biden after he served as US vice-president. On Tuesday he said he was “surprised to learn” of their existence.Then came a report from the NBC News network, followed by other media outlets, that said the president’s aides had found another set of classified documents at a separate location. The classification level, number and precise location of the material was not immediately clear, NBC News added.Biden under scrutiny as second batch of classified documents reportedly foundRead moreAttorney general Merrick Garland appointed former US attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to handle the inquiry into classified material found at Joe Biden’s home and former office. That means there are now two special counsels looking into the conduct of American presidents, the other being Jack Smith, who is overseeing the investigation of former president Donald Trump for the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago, the January 6 insurrection and the broader plot to overturn the 2020 election. The decisions of Hur and Smith could have major consequences for American politics in the months to come.Here’s what else happened today:
      House Republicans said they’d mount their own investigation of the classified files found at the president’s properties.
      The House Democratic leader called on George Santos to resign for lying about his qualifications. Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the chamber’s ethics body will handle the complaints against the Republican lawmaker.
      Inflation is on the decline in the United States, according to government data released today.
      Hunter Biden has issues that are more significant than Democrats would like to admit, but may add up to less than Republicans believe, the New York Times reports.
      The daily sparring match is ongoing in the White House briefing room, as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre parries questions from reporters wanting to know more about the classified documents inquiry.As the Guardian’s David Smith reports, Jean-Pierre wouldn’t get into whether Joe Biden would consent to an interview with investigators:Asked if Biden is willing to be interviewed by federal investigators, Jean-Pierre replies: “I’m just not going to get into hypotheticals… The president has said he takes classified documents and information very seriously.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 12, 2023
      But she said the president does not know what was in the documents:Jean-Pierre on Biden: “He was surprised that the records were found. He does not know what was in them. That hasn’t changed.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 12, 2023
      And didn’t have much more to say besides that:Jean-Pierre: “I’m not going to get into the decision that was made by the Attorney General… This is a president who believes in the independence of the justice department.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 12, 2023
      Here’s more from Richard Luscombe on what we know about Robert Hur, the just-appointed special counsel tasked with getting to the bottom of how classified documents ended up in Joe Biden’s home and former office:Robert Hur, appointed on Thursday as special counsel in the case of Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents while out of office, is according to his LinkedIn profile a “seasoned trial lawyer, former supreme court law clerk and former US attorney … with decades of experience in government and in private practice”.An appointee of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, the 50-year-old was US attorney for Maryland from 2018 to 2021 before becoming a partner at Gibson Dunn, a Washington law firm specializing in white-collar “enforcement, investigations and litigation”.Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director turned CNN law enforcement analyst, said Hur was a “well-informed, industrious, hard-working guy”.Robert Hur: special counsel in Biden documents case was Trump appointeeRead moreA top Republican government watchdog in Congress announced he would open an investigation into the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office.“With or without a special counsel, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee will investigate President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and the Swamp’s efforts to hide this information from the American people,” House oversight committee chair James Comer said in a statement.“The National Archives and Records Administration, the White House, and the Department of Justice were aware of the classified documents stashed in a closet at the Penn Biden Center before the election, and now we’ve learned classified documents kept in President Biden’s garage were found in December. There are many questions about why the Biden Administration kept this matter a secret from the public, who had access to the office and the residence, and what information is contained in these classified documents. Republicans will push for transparency, accountability, and answers for the American people.”Comer is leading the House GOP’s investigations of the Biden administration. Yesterday, he demanded records from the Treasury related to the president’s son Hunter Biden and other family members, as well as the testimony of former Twitter executives involved in the response to the publication of stories related to Hunter’s laptop in 2020.This is what George Santos’s days are like in the Capitol.He walks out of his office to a mob of reporters all wanting to know the same thing: will he resign after admitting to making up big parts of his resume? Yesterday, he said, he would not, but today, he caused some confusion by saying he’d do so if 142 people requested it. ABC News caught the moment:Rep Santos tells reporters “If 142 people ask for me to resign, I’ll resign.” pic.twitter.com/Q4jBHFUTVh— Lalee Ibssa (@LaleeIbssa) January 12, 2023
      According to NBC News, he appeared later in the day on Trump confidante Steve Bannon’s podcast to clarify that he would resign at the request of the 142,000 people who voted for him in the Republican’s New York district.House speaker Kevin McCarthy would consider releasing more surveillance footage from the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, despite the objections of police and the justice department, Politico reports.“I think the American public should actually see all what happened instead of a report that’s written for a political basis,” the Republican House leader said at his press conference today.Some footage has already been made public as part of court cases or the January 6 committee’s investigation, but much of the 14,000 hours of footage recorded by surveillance cameras that day remains held by Congress, Politico says. Both the justice department and Capitol police have objected to past efforts to release more of the video, saying it could help plan another attack.There are now two special counsels investigating two American presidents – one current, one former – related to the discovery of classified documents in their possession. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe takes a look at what kind of trouble Joe Biden and Donald Trump could be in:The discovery of documents from the Biden-Obama administration in at least two locations linked to Joe Biden has been greeted with dismay by Democrats and glee by Republicans, given the extensive legal troubles that Donald Trump faces for taking classified papers to his Florida resort.Republicans believe the incident shows that Biden has committed the same transgression as the former president, and argue that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and subsequent investigation were politically motivated point-scoring.But Democrats insist the two incidents are different legally, while acknowledging that they present a political problem for Biden that allows Republicans to go on the offensive.Classified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?Read moreThe Biden administration says it will cooperate with special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into the classified documents found at the president’s Delaware home and at a former office in Washington DC:Statement from the White House on continued cooperation with the Justice Department and the Special Counsel: pic.twitter.com/pVS46b2KII— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) January 12, 2023
      Special counsel Robert Hur has released a statement following his appointment by attorney general Merrick Garland.“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment. I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said.Merrick Garland closed his speech with a few words of support for Robert Hur.“I am confident that Mr Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent matter, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department,” he said.He ignored a question from a reporter about whether he’d spoken with Biden about the investigation.In his brief speech, Merrick Garland gave a timeline of how the document discovery unfolded behind the scenes.He confirmed that last November, he ask John Lausch, the Trump-appointed US attorney for the northern district of Illinois, to look into whether the materials found in an office formerly used by Biden in Washington DC warranted the appointment of a special counsel.The following month, a personal lawyer for Biden informed Lausch that more classified items were found in Biden’s garage at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, Garland said. These were turned over to the FBI. Garland also noted that Lausch was informed this morning by Biden’s attorney that another classified document was found at the president’s Wilmington home.Last week, Lausch informed Garland that he believed the matter warranted such an appointment, but he was unable to fill the role himself. Garland chose Robert Hur, another Trump appointee who stepped down as US attorney for Maryland after Biden took office, for the role.“I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity,” Garland said. “But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter.”Merrick Garland named the special counsel as Robert Hur, who served as US attorney for Maryland from 2018 to 2021.He was nominated to that role by Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.Attorney general Merrick Garland has announced the appointment of a special counsel to handle the inquiry into classified documents found at Joe Biden’s properties.Follow this blog for more.Oliver Milman reports on a key issue occupying Washington this week…Joe Biden has ruled out any ban of gas stoves in the US, following a furious backlash from Republicans to suggestions they could be phased out due to their contribution to indoor air pollution linked to childhood asthma and other conditions.Biden “does not support banning gas stoves”, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday. Jean-Pierre added that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency responsible for consumer safety, “is not banning gas stoves. I just want to be very clear on that.”The president’s intervention follows the possibility of a ban raised by Richard Trumka Jr, a CPSC commissioner, who called gas stoves a “hidden hazard” and said any option restricting their ongoing sale was “on the table”. In December, Trumka said that “we need to be talking about regulating gas stoves, whether that’s drastically improving emissions or banning gas stoves entirely”.Gas stoves have become a target for public health advocates, as well as climate campaigners, due to their leakage even when turned off of pollutants such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. The biggest concern is over their emission of nitrogen dioxide, which can trigger cardiovascular problems and cause the inflammation of airways.Read on…Biden rules out gas-stove ban after Republican backlashRead moreHere’s a thought-provoking lunchtime, pre-DoJ presser read from Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, about Joe Biden’s classified-document problem, how it compares to Donald Trump’s retention of such papers and why the Espionage Act itself is the problem…With Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States.This should be yet another wake up call that both the classification system and the Espionage Act need a dramatic overhaul. The question is — as more secret documents are found at a second Biden location and Donald Trump’s special prosecutor continues to work — will anyone listen?Now, before someone accuses me of “both side-ing” the separate Trump and Biden scandals here: no, they are not the same. Trump had mountains of secret documents he purposefully absconded with that he both refused to give back and arguably lied to authorities about. Whereas it seems Biden’s team actually alerted the authorities that the president had them in his office and is fully cooperating in their return.But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean Biden didn’t potentially violate the Espionage Act – at least according to some legal experts.That’s because the Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one.Read on…Joe Biden may have broken the Espionage Act. It’s so broad that you may have, too | Trevor TimmRead moreA growing number of Republicans are calling for George Santos to resign, though as yet party leaders have not moved against the newly elected congressman whose resumé has been shown to be largely fictional and whose campaign finances are the subject of formal complaints.Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House, had stern words for Santos and Republican leaders when he spoke to reporters earlier:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’s a complete and total fraud. He lied to the voters of the third congressional district in New York. He deceived and connived his way into Congress, and is now the responsibility of House Republicans to do something about it.
      “This is not a partisan issue, but it is an issue that Republicans need to handle. Clean up your house. You can start with George Santos.”Six New York Republicans have called for Santos to quit. Santos has said he will not.Of a move earlier this week by two New York Democrats, Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres, to hand-deliver to Santos their request for an investigation of his campaign finances, Jeffries said: “I was well-aware of their decision to do so.“But any matters before the ethics committee are before the ethics committee, and should be resolved by members of the ethics committee.”Kevin McCarthy would seem – up to a point – to agree. The Republican House speaker told reporters today: “What I find is that voters have elected George Santos. If there is a concern he will go through ethics. If there is something that is found it will be dealt with in that manner. But they [voters] have a voice in this process.”Read on:More Republicans call for George Santos to resign over fictional resuméRead moreAttorney general Merrick Garland has a public address planned for 1.15pm eastern time after a second batch of classified materials was found at Joe Biden’s house in Delaware. Garland may indirectly respond to calls from Republicans to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the matter, as he did for the government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Follow this blog for the latest from his press conference as it happens.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      The House Democratic leader has called on George Santos to resign for lying about his qualifications. Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the chamber’s ethics body will handle his case.
      Inflation is on the decline in the United States, according to government data released today.
      Hunter Biden has issues that are more significant than Democrats would like to admit, but may add up to less than Republicans believe, the New York Times reports.
      The trial of five members of the Proud Boys militia group has started today in Washington DC, Politico reports. The group is facing seditious conspiracy charges related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol:NOW: The Proud Boys seditious conspiracy jury is in the courtroom and being sworn in. DOJ opening arguments should begin momentarily.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 12, 2023
      MCCULLOUGH starts with reciting history of peaceful transfer of power”On Jan. 6, 2021, these men — Enrique Tariro, Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zacahry Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — sought to change that history.”“These men did not stand back. They did not stand by. They mobilized”— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 12, 2023
      In November, the founder of the Oath Keepers, another militia group involved in the insurrection, was found guilty of the same charge by a federal jury, along with a co-defendant.Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes found guilty of seditious conspiracyRead more More

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      Trump appointee named special counsel in Biden papers investigation

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      Trump appointee named special counsel in Biden papers investigationRobert Hur chosen by US attorney general after classified materials discovered in Delaware and Washington 02:47The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice-president.The documents were discovered to have been stored in his garage at his home in Delaware and in office space in Washington DC.White House confirms second set of classified documents found at Biden Delaware property – liveRead moreThe move to name Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor and former top justice department official, was a rapid decision from Garland to insulate the department from possible accusations of political conflicts or interference.Hur will be responsible for investigating the potential unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents at Biden’s home and his former thinktank, and will have the authority to prosecute any crimes resulting from the investigation, the order signed by Garland said.“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgement. I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said in a statement released by the justice department.The decision to appoint a special counsel comes at a fraught moment for Garland, who only just named Jack Smith in November to serve as special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security material and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.Speaking at justice department headquarters in Washington, Garland said “extraordinary circumstances” – namely that the president, to whom he and the department reports, could yet become ensnared in the investigation – necessitated an independent prosecutor to oversee the inquiry.The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of whether Biden was involved in taking the documents to either his Delaware home or the office space at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy in Washington, where he was an honorary professor until 2019.Special counsels are prosecutors with more independence than other federal prosecutors, who can be installed for high-profile investigations when there are conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts, though they ultimately answer to the attorney general.The Biden special counsel will examine approximately 10 classified documents found at the thinkthank, which included US intelligence memos and some materials marked as Top Secret/Secret Compartmented Information, and an unconfirmed additional number of classified documents that were in the garage and a storage space nearby.02:47From the information released so far, there are major differences between the Biden case and that involving Trump, who retained hundreds of classified documents and only partially complied with a grand jury subpoena that led to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last August.By contrast, Biden and his lawyers proactively returned the classified documents dating back to the Obama administration when he was vice-president to the government as soon as they were discovered. Biden was also not responding to a grand jury subpoena.Biden’s personal lawyers found the first set of documents at the Penn Biden Center on 2 November and alerted the National Archives and the justice department. The archives then issued a formal referral, leading Garland to task the Trump-appointed US attorney John Lausch to conduct a review.Biden’s lawyers then found additional classified documents in Delaware on 20 December. On 5 January, Lausch recommended that Garland appoint a special counsel to conduct an investigation. Lausch added it could not be him, since he was due to return to private practice, according to a source familiar with the matter.The revelation about the new documents came hours after the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the White House was committed to handling the matter in the “right way”, pointing to Biden’s personal attorneys’ immediate notification of the National Archives.“As my colleagues in the counsel have stated and said to all of you yesterday, this is an ongoing process under the review of the Department of Justice. So we are going to be limited on what we can say here,” Jean-Pierre said.Before the special counsel appointment, Biden told reporters: “I’m going to get a chance to speak on all this, God willing, soon. People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously. I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the justice department’s review.”The top Republican on the House intelligence committee has since requested that the US intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” to assess the impact of their storage in an unauthorized location.In a statement on his Truth Social platform shortly before Garland spoke on Thursday, Trump said Garland should “immediately end special counsel investigation into anything related to me because I did everything right, and appoint a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden who hates Biden as much as Jack Smith hates me”.According to a justice department biography, Hur’s prosecutorial career has included cases including gang violence, drug trafficking and domestic terrorism, as well as white-collar crime such as fraud, tax offenses, intellectual property theft and public corruption.Hur graduated from Harvard College and received his law degree from Stanford. He clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist before working for the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, when he ran the justice department’s criminal division during the George W Bush administration.Most recently, he was a partner at the highly esteemed law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher after he left the justice department at the end of the Trump administration, where he served as the principal associate deputy attorney general, the top adviser role to the deputy attorney general.TopicsJoe BidenDelawareUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US attorney general outlines investigation into classified documents found at Biden’s home – video

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      The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the retention of classified documents by President Joe Biden from his time as vice-president. Speaking in Washington DC, Garland outlined the events that led to the announcement, confirming that further classified documents had been found at Biden’s home in Delaware. Prior to the statement, the White House said the search for secret materials from Biden’s time under President Barack Obama had concluded

      Special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents
      White House pledges to cooperate with special counsel over classified documents – live More

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      Classified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?

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      ExplainerClassified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?The president and his predecessor have each retained secret papers but what do we know and what happens next? The discovery of documents from the Biden-Obama administration in at least two locations linked to Joe Biden has been greeted with dismay by Democrats and glee by Republicans, given the extensive legal troubles that Donald Trump faces for taking classified papers to his Florida resort.More classified documents found in garage at Biden’s Delaware homeRead moreRepublicans believe the incident shows that Biden has committed the same transgression as the former president, and argue that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and subsequent investigation were politically motivated point-scoring.But Democrats insist the two incidents are different legally, while acknowledging that they present a political problem for Biden that allows Republicans to go on the offensive.So what is the real situation? Here are the key points to know:What actually has happened?The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago last summer discovered more than 11,000 documents and photos from the Trump administration. They reportedly included highly classified intelligence material as well as more mundane papers. Subsequently more documents were also found.With Biden, the papers are much smaller in number and hail from his time as vice-president to Barack Obama. The first batch was found at a Washington thinktank linked to Biden, and more documents, including some marked classified, were found by lawyers in a garage and storage room during a search of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.Legally, how serious is this for Trump and Biden?Both situations are being investigated by the US Department of Justice, which will look into the behavior and possible motivations for taking the documents.Trump appears to have willfully obstructed efforts to recover them, leading to the FBI raid, and the decision by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to launch a criminal inquiry and appoint a special counsel to weigh charges on the issue as part of a broader brief looking at investigations into Trump.With Biden, his team said they cooperated fully and immediately returned the documents to the National Archives as soon as they were discovered. Garland has asked John Lausch, a Trump appointee as US attorney for the northern district of Illinois, to conduct a review, but has initially resisted Republican calls for a criminal investigation or special counsel.What’s in the documents?In neither case is that entirely clear, although the Trump documents are reported to have included an unidentified foreign power’s nuclear secrets and other military capabilities.The Biden documents also reportedly contained classified papers commingled with non-classified materials, with the subjects and content yet unknown.Notably, however, the Trump papers included some dated after his presidency, suggesting he had them while no longer authorized. All of Biden’s seem to be dated while he was in office as vice-president.What’s the political fallout?The Mar-a-Lago raid had mixed impact for Trump. Many Republicans despaired at having to defend the former president, while others backed his claims that he was being unfairly targeted.The Trump team will attempt to exploit Biden’s misfortunes as he pursues his 2024 run to recapture the presidency, while the new Republican majority in the House can, if it wishes, launch its own investigation into the Biden documents.For Democrats, the discovery of the documents is an unexpected and unwanted political headache. It dilutes their outrage at Trump’s possession of classified papers and hands Republicans an easy talking point on what had previously been a thorny issue.What are the Trump and Biden camps saying?The White House issued a statement on Thursday from Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, conceding “a small number” of documents with classified markings were found among personal and political papers at Biden’s Wilmington home, but didn’t say when. It stressed the president’s lawyers were “fully cooperating with the National Archives and Department of Justice”.Trump, in a predictable response on his Truth Social network, demanded to know when the FBI would “raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House”.TopicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden may have broken the Espionage Act. It’s so broad that you may have, too | Trevor Timm

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      Joe Biden may have broken the Espionage Act. It’s so broad that you may have, tooTrevor TimmThe Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. Readers of this newspaper may even have violated it With President Joe Biden now embroiled in his own classified documents controversy, partisan commentators will surely have a field day playing the tired old game of “no, you endangered national security.” Instead, I’d like to focus on the real issues: the overly broad and often-abused Espionage Act and the massive, draconian secrecy system that does far more harm than good in the United States. This should be yet another wake up call that both the classification system and the Espionage Act need a dramatic overhaul. The question is — as more secret documents are found at a second Biden location and Trump’s special prosecutor continues to work — will anyone listen?Now, before someone accuses me of “both side-ing” the separate Trump and Biden scandals here: no, they are not the same. Trump had mountains of secret documents he purposefully absconded with that he both refused to give back and arguably lied to authorities about. Whereas it seems Biden’s team actually alerted the authorities that the president had them in his office and is fully cooperating in their return. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean Biden didn’t potentially violate the Espionage Act – at least according to some legal experts. That’s because the Espionage Act is incredibly broad and spares no one. As I’ve explained before, even using the Espionage Act to go after Trump should not be cheered on by Democrats. Instead of actual spies, the hundred year-old law is usually abused to prosecute whistleblowers and threaten journalists. But it’s actually so broad that if you are a longtime reader of the Guardian, you’ve probably technically broken the law too!“Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document…relating to the national defense…willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it” is in violation of the statute. The Guardian, like every other major newspaper reporting on US news, has published documents the government considers classified or “national defense information.” The Snowden files are only one example; there are likely countless others. Thankfully the First Amendment should ultimately protect both the Guardian and its readers from prosecution. (Ironically, first the Trump administration, and now the Biden administration may be trying to change that with its unprecedented and dangerous charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.) Regardless, such an overly broad and dangerous law should not be on the books in the first place. The reason the Justice Department is able to potentially wield it over so many people is because the secrecy system itself is irrevocably broken. The US government has a massive overclassification problem – and that’s not just my opinion as a transparency advocate. Even the people who have been in charge of administering the secrecy system often denounce it once they leave government.Tens or hundreds of millions of documents are classified per year. A tiny fraction will ever see the light of day, despite the fact the vast majority never should have been given the “secret” stamp in the first place. Of all the money spent on the classification system, less than half of one percent is spent on de-classification.The system is set up so the government has every incentive to claim any information is of the utmost sensitivity because they know anyone they prosecute cannot challenge their classification decisions. And it doesn’t matter that, time and again, they have been shown to grossly exaggerate or lie about the true nature of those supposed “secrets.” No one is ever punished for overclassifying information, yet plenty of people go to prison for disclosing information to journalists that never should have been classified to begin in. Even efforts to reform the secrecy system end up classified themselves. Take the reporting on the Biden controversy. CNN reported that the “classified materials included some top-secret files with the ‘sensitive compartmented information’ designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.” They cited an anonymous source (almost certainly law enforcement). Yet CNN also said that a “White House official characterized the documents as ‘fewer than a dozen,’ … none of which are ‘particularly sensitive’ and ‘not of high interest to the intelligence community.’”So which is it? Maybe somebody’s lying. Or maybe it’s all Top Secret and also basically nothing, because the US government classifies everything. As journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out, political elites constantly mishandle classified documents, but never receive the severe punishment lower level whistleblowers do when they commit same or similar crimes. It’s true there is a severe double standard that has ruined the lives of so many brave whistleblowers. But maybe, just maybe, now that the classification system has ensnared each of the last two presidents, people will start coming to their senses: tear down the US secrecy system before it tears down its next victim.
      Trevor Timm is executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionJoe BidencommentReuse this content More