Flashback: Joe Biden Slammed Donald Trump as ‘Irresponsible’ for Keeping Documents at Mar-a-Lago

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Brandon Bell/Getty Images, Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Wendell Husebø

President Joe Biden slammed former President Donald Trump in September on 60 Minutes as “irresponsible” for allegedly keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

“How could that possibly happen?” Biden responded in the interview about Trump’s documents at Mar-a-Lago. “How anyone could be that irresponsible?”

“And I thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?” Biden added:

Biden’s statement came four months before CBS News reported Monday that a Biden think tank had been storing ten classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington:

Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told CBS News. The roughly 10 documents are from President Biden’s vice-presidential office at the center, the sources said. CBS News has learned the FBI is also involved in the U.S. attorney’s inquiry.

The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, just before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets.

Sauber also said that on the same day the material was discovered, Nov. 2, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives, which took possession of the materials the following morning.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, stated he will send a demand letter on Tuesday to the National Archives to learn more about the alleged mishandling of documents.

Santos - WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 12: House Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY) speaks during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing titled The Capitol Insurrection: Unexplained Delays and Unanswered Questions, on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. The committee will hear testimony about delays in law enforcement response during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY) speaks on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)

“We asked the National Archives question for information when they raided Mar-A-Largo. And the only response we got was they referred us to the Department of Justice,” Comer said in a statement. “In the research we did at the time, every president had accidentally packed documents that may or may not be considered classified, but they weren’t raided. Now we find out the current President actually accidentally had classified documents.”

“Is the White House going to be raided tonight? Are they going to raid the Biden center?” Comer asked. “I don’t know. But, you know, this is further concern that there’s a two tier justice system within the DOJ with how they treat Republicans versus Democrats.”

Additional Republicans have sounded off about the double standard pointed out by Comer.

“Why were classified documents stored at Biden’s Chinese-funded think tank? The Justice Department must appoint a special counsel to investigate,” Taylor Budowich, head of MAGA Inc., told Breitbart News.

According to the New York Post, anonymous Chinese donations have been given to the University of Pennsylvania. The academic center at the University of Pennsylvania is named after Joe Biden.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that Trump’s handling of documents at Mar-a-Lago was grounds was treasonous.

“We were told for months that this was treasonous… grounds for impeachment… & meriting the death penalty, yet I have a feeling nothing will happen!?” he tweeted.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

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