Headlines in 2022 damned former President Donald Trump for mishandling “classified information”—a term designating secrets that have genuine national security value.
2023: current President Joe Biden has definitely mishandled classified info. Damning fact: Biden’s negligence—or malfeasance—was discovered before the 2022 midterm elections.
For two months the FBI, Department of Justice, and corrupt media provided Biden with politically expedient silence.
Fact: Trump endured a very ugly FBI raid on his Florida home. Fact: Biden confronts drip-by-drip evidence that he ignored very clear laws governing classified national security information when he left the office of vice president in early 2017.
Differentiating fact: Trump, as president, had classification authority, meaning he could declassify documents. VP Joe did not.
Raid Trump, Biden slides in silence. The two-tiered justice system stinks and is patently un-American.
National security means a lot to me, and for the sake of our security let’s get to the gut of the classified info issue.
The laws governing classified national security information are a fortification—a legal, institutional, and behavioral fort that codifies and enforces procedures for determining the classification level, limiting the distribution, and maintaining the physical control of secrets.
Government security agencies are supposed to be fully committed to protecting secrets that contribute to the defense of Americans and American allies from deadly threats and destructive surprises.
World War II’s sobering rhyme, “loose lips sink ships,” reminded America that failure to protect national security secrets exacted a blood price. Even minimal negligence could give an enemy enough information to damage the U.S. and allied war effort and kill American soldiers and sailors.
Terrorists, rogue states, Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are deadly threats. Effective diplomacy and reliable intelligence collection and assessment are America’s first lines of defense against them. Effective diplomacy and intel require institutionally and personally protecting classified information 24/7 without a slip.
This entails a moral commitment. Failing to protect secrets increases the risk of belligerent attack on America and its allies. Exposing information may endanger the lives of U.S. military personnel and intelligence officers.
Verified security clearances matter. “Cleared individuals” often have access to information that will get Americans and American allies killed. The ability to securely handle life-and-death information is the bottom-line determination, or ought to be.
Failure to follow the rules undermines morale at security agencies, especially when senior leaders fail to lead by example.
The circumstances in a failure to protect secrecy matter. Accidents and mistakes occur, and those responsible for the accidents and mistakes are held responsible, at least those at lower levels. However, in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s so called email case, we confronted a dangerous intelligence scandal created by her premeditated and systematic (hence criminal) mishandling of highly classified U.S. national security information. Clinton’s private server had Top Secret Special Access Program (SAP) information. Compromising this type of information can expose “sources, methods, and lives” to enemy retaliation.
Clinton beat the rap because... corrupt FBI officials, ugly Beltway politics, and a corrupt legacy media eschewing honesty for propaganda.
Trump’s raid got big headlines. In retrospect it appears the FBI raid on Trump was a propaganda stunt. Biden’s first classified documents were found Nov. 2, 2022, at The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which is located in Washington. We didn’t hear about the discovery until January 2023. The Penn Biden Center opened in February 2018. Where were the documents for the 13 months following Biden’s departure from office? Silence.
Biden’s lawyers are assessing the documents. Are they qualified to investigate a breach of classified information laws? Silence. More classified documents have turned up in a garage at one of Biden’s Delaware homes. Hunter Biden lived in the home for several months, and Hunter made deals with the CCP. The Biden Penn Center got CCP money. Did Communist China have access to Biden’s classified documents? Silence—so far.
Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, appointed by DOJ to investigate Biden’s criminality, must expand his investigation to include potential CCP espionage. If Hur fails to do so, he becomes a national security liability.
