ANALYSIS | FBI record deepens political implications of Biden documents

OPINION |

Biden and Trump scandals over documents are a tie: Cárdenas 5:24

(CNN) --

The FBI's search of US President Joe Biden's home and the discovery of more classified material deepened the seriousness of the controversy over his secret documents and worsened the political fallout.

Biden's lawyers argued that Friday's search underscored his cooperation with a special counsel's investigation, implicitly distinguishing him from the behavior of former President Donald Trump in his own classified documents scandal.

• The week everything changed for the Biden White House

Yet the reality of FBI agents searching the private residence of a sitting president remains extraordinary, even as the White House seeks to downplay it.

This prompted new questions about why Biden still had classified information from his time as vice president;

how the material, typically handled with extreme care by federal employees, ended up in his private residence, and whether he was safe from prying eyes in the years he was there.

The new discoveries drew some criticism of the president, including among Democrats.

The White House's handling of the controversy, which has fueled the classic trickle-down cycle of a slowly emerging Washington scandal, has diverted attention from a period of political success for the president and provided ammunition for new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

"When that information is found, it lowers the stature of anyone who is in possession of it, because that's not supposed to happen," Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin said on CNN's "State of the Union." on Sunday.

“Whether it was the fault of a staff member or a lawyer, it makes no difference.

The elected official bears the ultimate responsibility,” added the Illinois Democrat.

Durbin, like other Democrats, also tried to draw sharp comparisons between Biden's cooperation with the Justice Department and Trump's months of apparent obfuscation and even possible criminal obstruction over his own, larger body of classified documents.

Yet mainstream Republicans sought to deepen Biden's discomfort by seizing the opportunity he offered his political enemies.

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"I think what's significant, as a former attorney general, is that they're no longer relying on lawyers to fulfill, even though it was consensual, the search," House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul told Dana Bash of CNN on "State of the Union." The Texas Republican continued: "But the fact is that the FBI did this search, not their lawyers. That really speeds up the investigation."

• What we know about the classified Biden documents: A timeline of events

While there are nuanced legal distinctions between the Biden and Trump cases, many voters may simply perceive both as referring to the larger subject of classified material that Biden and Trump maintain.

And while in a few years, when the current president's legacy is assessed, his current embarrassment may be a mere blip, it marks a big game changer for the 2024 Trump campaign, as it looks to take down one of the biggest front lines of attack. powerful against you.

The White House tries to dampen the controversy

Analysis: the investigation into classified documents at Biden's home 4:51

The FBI's 13-hour visit to Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, was made public on Saturday night by Biden's personal attorney, who said the Justice Department took "six items consisting of documents bearing classification and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President's service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President."

The department also took some personally handwritten notes from the vice presidential years, attorney Bob Bauer said in the statement.

This was after the president's lawyers previously found approximately 20 documents at Biden's home and in an office he used in Washington after leaving the vice presidency.

Richard Sauber, senior White House counsel, wrote in a statement Saturday that Biden had "committed to handling this responsibly because he takes it seriously" and he and his team worked "quickly to ensure that the Department of Justice and the special prosecutor had what they need to conduct a thorough review.”

This is a clear attempt to distinguish the president's situation from that of Trump, who resisted attempts to have him turn over classified information at his Mar-a-Lago residence, apparently misled investigators about what he had, accused the FBI. of planting incriminating information and claimed to have already declassified it, even though there was no sign of the kind of paper trial that such a procedure would suggest.

Among the possible charges Trump faces in his own investigation is obstruction of justice.

Biden's conduct does not appear to suggest that he faces similar exposure, even if he were not shielded by interpretations of previous Justice Department guidance that sitting presidents are protected from prosecution.

In theory, it is possible to see an eventual justification for prosecuting Trump, for obstruction, for example, if the evidence warrants such a step, and for Biden to escape it.

But while such legal distinctions may exist, the political consequences of such a course would be incendiary.

The question of whether to prosecute Trump as former president and current candidate for the White House in 2024, due to the saga of the documents and his role before the US Capitol insurrection in 2021, was already radioactive.

Any perception that he was being treated differently from Biden, with the two being potential opposition rivals in 2024, would create a political hell that Trump would surely explode.

The drip of scandal

The discovery of new documents on Saturday marked the latest case in which subsequent events, including the discovery of more classified material, followed attempts by the White House and the president to downplay the matter.

Biden talks about the documents found in his office 0:40

After Biden previously implied that classified documents found in his garage were safe because it was locked to protect his beloved Corvette, he told reporters who asked him about the situation on Thursday that "there's nothing there, there ”.

However, the next day, FBI investigators searching his Wilmington home with his legal team present found more classified material in a manner that further blurred the distinctions between his case and Trump's.

While Democrats have defended the president, there have been clear signs of concern and even frustration among his congressional allies that the White House has yet to end the controversy.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, for example, said Sunday that important questions remained even though the president was cooperating with the investigation.

“That is why there needs to be an independent investigation.

… How many documents are we talking about?

Dozens, a handful or hundreds?

How serious are they?

Why did they take them?

Did anyone have access to them?" Kaine said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who sometimes takes positions that clash with Democratic Party leaders in part because of Trump's popularity in his home state, criticized Biden and also demanded answers.

"It's unbelievable how this could happen.

It's totally irresponsible," he told CNN's Bash.

“The right thing to do is exactly what (Attorney General) Merrick Garland did.

Appoint a special prosecutor.

Let's wait and see.

Some people are taking sides.

'Okay, it was more egregious what President Trump did than what President Biden did.' And maybe that's true. I don't know. Maybe it's not true. Let's find out.”

Friday's FBI search and the apparent cooperation of Biden's legal team seem to take away one of the main talking points for Republicans: that Trump was treated unfairly because his property was "raided" and Biden's was not.

The GOP was using this line despite the fact that last year's search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a court order that required the FBI to convince a judge that there was probable cause to believe it may have been done. committed a crime.

But few Republicans have mentioned such distinctions.

Florida Senator Rick Scott tweeted: "Think about it: Joe Biden has had classified documents in his house for YEARS with no explanation or accountability as to why."

Among many other tweets from Republicans, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley added: “He sounds like a pattern of serial disregard for the law.

The American people have a right to know what was in all these documents that Biden was illegally amassing.

And who else had access to them.”

The jubilation of the GOP reflected the extent to which there is now an opportunity for Republicans and surprising luck for Trump after a lackluster start to his 2024 presidential campaign.

DocumentsJoe Biden