Dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden among members of his own party is likely to grow markedly in the wake of revelations that Biden left classified documents to which he had gained access during his time as vice president in an office he used in Washington as an honorary member of the University of Pennsylvania faculty, political analysts say.
As a result of this development, more questions will be heard about his suitability to run again in 2024, they say.
Biden may try to downplay the significance of the documents that have been handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but this probably will not assuage either voters’ concerns or the increasingly vocal faction within his own party that looks askance at a 2024 bid.
“The major media will ignore this, as well as Biden. He will lie again. It wouldn’t surprise me if he either said the documents were declassified, or that someone put them there by mistake,” Van B. Poole, a political consultant and former member of the Florida State Senate and chair of the Florida Republican Party, told The Epoch Times.
“When my lawyers were cleaning out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me, a secure office, in the Capitol, the four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn. They found some documents in a box, you know, in a locked cabinet, or at least a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box and they did what they should have done,” Biden said after the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico.
Put on the Defensive
But experts believe that neither Biden’s expression of surprise at the finding of the documents, nor his potential denial of his responsibility for their mishandling, is likely to get him off the hook. Rather, the controversy may feed the perception that his competence and presence of mind are no longer what they once were and that he may not be suitable to finish out his current term, let alone seek a second one, according to experts.“I think this will dog Biden through 2024. Neither the President or conservatives will let him forget it, and the Democrats will be on the defensive. It will increase any internal grumbling about Biden,” said Keith Naughton, principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a political consultancy based in Germantown, Maryland.
While the long-term consequences of development concerning Biden remain to be seen, it is likely to stoke fierce internal dissension among Democrats and prompt more cries for an alternative to run against Trump, Naughton believes.
But the severest consequences may fall on the national media as they apply different standards to Biden’s fiduciary failure regarding highly sensitive documents, as compared with Trump’s, according to the analyst.
Media Integrity
The discovery of the Biden documents has put the media in an awkward position, and some observers view the situation as a test of their honesty and integrity.“This is a big test for the media. If they cover this breach of security with any of the same intensity as they covered the exact same story for Trump, they will have passed the test. But we all know the media will sweep the Biden revelations under the rug because they can’t help themselves,” John Feehery, a strategist, commentator, and former press secretary to Rep. Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.), told The Epoch Times.
“They will justify it this way: Trump scandals draw clicks. Biden scandals don’t. But everybody knows what is going on here,” Feehery added.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
