CNN’s defense this week of President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents — “Under 12 Total” — collapsed Wednesday when a second batch of classified documents was reportedly found in another location.
Mainstream media organizations leapt to Biden’s defense when it emerged that ten documents with classified markings were found in Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center, which was established in 2018.
The documents reportedly included briefings with intelligence and military information regarding Iran, Ukraine, and the UK from Biden’s days as vice president. Only the president has declassification authority.
CNN tried to portray Biden’s mishandling of classified documents as less bad than Trump’s alleged misuse of classified documents, though Trump had declassification authority and there was no way CNN could have known with certainty that the documents found at the Penn Biden Center were the only ones mishandled.
CNN already downplaying Biden's theft of classified docs pic.twitter.com/Zx34kP4HYu
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 10, 2023
However, NBC News reported Wednesday that at least one more batch of classified documents had been found by Biden’s aides at another location connected to him.
Just an hour or so before that report, at Wednesday’s White House Press Briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer questions about whether then-former Vice President Biden had used other office s were other classified documents might have been kept.
Last year, after Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, was raided by the FBI, Biden had ripped Trump as irresponsible for his handling of classified documents.
There have been no raids on Biden’s homes or offices; his aides and lawyers have been entrusted with the task of uncovering classified that might have been mishandled by Biden or misplaced in various locations he used or inhabited. It is unclear whether any of them has security clearance necessary to handle classified information.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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