Questions abound as highly classified documents continue to be found in strange locations tied to Joe Biden, one an office underwritten by unidentified Chinese contributors. Innocuous discoveries or a percolating constitutional crisis?
In all this, where are the FBI investigators? Why the conspiracy of silence? Did DOJ know about this problem well before the recent midterms, and choose to stay nothing? Is America being stonewalled? At least 12 major questions need prompt answers.
First, why is the White House doing this search – rather than the FBI? A random, incomplete search the former vice president’s offices, residence, and garage by “White House counsel” is objectively wrong. National security is at issue, criminal justice issues are afoot. White House counsel does not have a TS/SCI clearance. The impression left is of cover-up, good for no one.
Second, what or who led the White House Counsel to search the former vice president’s offices, closet, home, and garage? When did that search begin, when were the highly classified documents discovered? Did that not raise flags – when they appeared in a closet and garage? Is that where anyone puts highly classified documents, open for easy access? Who put them there? That will tell us a lot, and a deposition of that person will tell us more.
Third, again pointing to the urgency of Justice interceding, as well as counterintelligence and counterespionage experts, where else might documents be secreted by the former vice president or his family? Have all similar locations been searched, and if not, why not?
Fourth, why has Justice not frozen access to these locations, ordered all evidence preserved, completed a formal search? On known facts, these documents’ contents, locations, and the relationship they have to China, Ukraine, and the president’s family suggest possible criminal activity. Why is this not being openly stated, the discovery sites secured?
In view of the obvious potential for foreign access, particularly in locations underwritten Chinese money, in view of the president getting a passthrough salary after his time in office from a university which received that money, and the son’s financial payment by China and Ukraine, why are these locations not being processed as possible crime scene, logs, bank records, cameras seized? Why is the Attorney General delaying this process even now?
Fifth, why has the university not been ordered to keep all records, emails, phone logs, and camera footage involving Chinese nationals who gave tens of millions of dollars to underwrite the vice president’s DC office and, by all appearances, a nearly million-dollar salary?
Sixth, what is the nature of the vice president’s justification for holding these highly classified documents relating to foreign nations, including Ukraine and Iran – after federal employment, in non-federal locations? Since he did not work in a closet or garage, why did he hide them?
Seventh, did Joe Biden ever give access implicitly to his son, other family members, a foreign government, or “cutout” to these documents or offices? When did Jill Biden know classified documents were retained? Does she possess any classified documents? The president’s son?
Eighth, what is the nature of the classified documents “discovered?” We are told they relate to Ukraine and Iran – how? Do they discuss aid, investigation of the vice president’s son, Iran’s nuclear program, anything foreign countries would pay or extort to learn?
Nineth, what is the full nature of China’s financial engagement with the Bidens and university, conditions tied to gifts, expectations? Are any other universities operating this way?
Tenth, do any of these highly classified documents bear dates after the vice presidency, hidden while Mr. Biden was president? If so, on what basis would such an act be justified?
Eleventh, are Biden family bank records, phone logs, cameras, unclassified-but-related documents, and physical evidence – such as gifts – being preserved as evidence? Is a grand jury being empaneled to investigate influence pedaling, bribery, and sale of classified information?
Twelfth, where in this “DEFCOM ALPHA” by Justice, FBI, CIA, the Intelligence Community, Defense, and State Departments? Prior to news of these transgressions, were Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, FBI Director Chris Wray, CIA Director William Burns, National Archives Director of Presidential Libraries Kara Bond, or any White House personnel aware of these classified documents being secreted – prior to midterms? Why was that information not made public immediately? Who suppressed it and why?
In sum, this looks like something other than “mishandling,” and hardly “an inadvertent error,” accidental placement in a “closet,” “garage,” and offices of highly classified documents, at a minimum illegally retained and secreted in peculiar places by someone, open for foreign access.
This is a serious breach of security if nothing else. Troublingly, it bears the hallmarks of something more concerning, bluntly the potential sale of classified documents and information to a foreign government, together with an effort to cover up and minimize material facts which would otherwise trigger a criminal inquiry. To borrow a phrase not heard in 50 years, deceptive, deflective, and incomplete answers by the White House imply “stonewalling.” Why?
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
