The big problem with the Joe Biden documents story

 THE BIG PROBLEM WITH THE JOE BIDEN DOCUMENTS STORY. This could be the shortest newsletter ever. The biggest problem with the Joe Biden documents story is this: We know only what Joe Biden's lawyers have told us. And the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the case will make the problem worse.

Now, some elaboration. The initial fact that Biden, after his term as vice president ended, kept some classified documents in his possession was revealed by a team of Biden lawyers. In making a public statement, they noted that the discovery of the classified documents, on Nov. 2, 2022, in Biden's old office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., was made by...a team of Biden lawyers.

That alone raises some questions. Biden's vice presidency ended on Jan. 20, 2017. He began using the Penn Biden office in mid-2017. He became president on Jan. 20, 2021. With the Oval Office and plenty of workspace right downstairs, he no longer needed the Penn Biden office. So why was it not until Nov. 2, 2022, that his lawyers were emptying the old office? And by the way, why does it take a team of lawyers to clear out an office? Many people use movers.

Biden's lawyers did not tell us. They said simply, "The documents were discovered when the president's personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington." But why were they doing it at that moment? "Beware when the narrative starts in the middle," advises Jason Foster, a former longtime investigative counsel in the Senate and now head of Empower Oversight. "It may mean someone doesn't want you to know how it began."

Indeed, the Biden documents story starts in the middle. We don't know how it began. How did the classified documents end up in the former vice president's possession? We don't know.

The same questions apply to the documents found in Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware. How did they get there? When did they get there? Did Biden himself use them? Did he move them around once they were there? Again, what we know comes from the president's lawyers. Richard Sauber, a special counsel to the president who the White House says was hired to deal with investigations from the new Republican-controlled House, released a statement Thursday saying that after the discovery of the Penn Biden Center documents, "the president's lawyers have searched the president's Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware residences — the other locations where files from his vice presidential office might have been shipped in the course of the 2017 transition."

Even though the Penn Biden Center discovery occurred on Nov. 2, 2022, Sauber said the search of the Delaware houses was completed "last night," meaning Wednesday night, Jan. 11, 2023. Why did Biden's lawyers wait so long to search the houses? Biden's lawyers did not say. They did say they were "coordinating closely" with the Justice Department.

In any event, Biden's lawyers said they discovered a "small number" of classified documents at the president's house in Wilmington. "All but one of these documents were found in storage space in the president's Wilmington residence garage," the lawyers said. "One document consisting of one page was discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room." The president himself, in remarks at the White House Thursday, added that the adjacent room was his "personal library."

Those White House remarks, by the way, were the ones in which Biden defended the storage of classified material in a garage close to his beloved 1967 Corvette sports car. "My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK?" Biden said in response to a question from Fox News's Peter Doocy. "So it's not like they're sitting out in the street." With that, Biden seemed to suggest that security for a really cool vintage car is certainly sufficient for classified documents, too.

The documents in the Wilmington house could present another problem for Biden, which is that Biden's son Hunter, when he was addicted to crack and in a downward spiral, was living in the house when the documents were in the garage. That could be a problem in two senses. One, Hunter Biden, always trying to make some money off his father's names and connections, had a lot of shady foreign associates. And two, Hunter had what you might call a lax attitude toward information security. After all, he left a laptop filled with all sorts of information at a repair shop and never returned to claim it, leading to more problems than anyone could have imagined.

Right now, beyond a very few details furnished by the Justice Department in the announcement of the appointment of special counsel Robert Hur, everything the public knows about the classified documents has come from the Biden team. And now, it is a good bet that the appointment of Hur will make information even harder to come by. The existence of a special investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents will allow the White House to refuse to answer reasonable questions about the investigation.

In Friday's White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the investigation and told reporters, "I would refer you to the Department of Justice." Of course, the Department of Justice will not comment. And when House Republicans seek information from the DOJ, the answer will be that it cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. Special counsel investigations make it harder, not easier, for the public to know what is going on.

So go back to the original point: The biggest problem with the Joe Biden documents story is that we know only what Joe Biden's lawyers have told us. And that is just the way Biden wants it.