The last time Joe Biden packed up and left office, he took with him thousands of papers from his decades in public service — including some classified documents that should have gone to the National Archives for safekeeping.
That move spawned a federal investigation into whether Biden had knowingly broken the law and a damaging Justice Department report that referred to Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” igniting public concerns over his mental acuity that eventually led Biden to drop out of the race.
The discovery also watered down the significance of the criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump, who had been accused of purposefully hoarding top secret documents at his Florida estate — and it helped fuel Trump's claims of unfair political persecution.
The moving trucks are at the White House again, and Biden's staff is loading documents and items for storage as he prepares to depart next week. The administration has promised a new, more secure protocol to review and separate out classified information. But with just a week left to go, there's no word yet on recommendations from a federal task force formed at Biden's behest to develop best practices for transitions.
“We are going to do our best, certainly, to be careful, to follow the rules, to do this the right way, to follow traditions, obviously, as the president truly wants to do,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the packing effort.
Biden formed the presidential records task force early in 2024, in order to study past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from an outgoing administration. It was also assessing the need for changes to existing policies and procedures to prevent the removal of sensitive information that by law should be kept with the National Archives and Records Administration.
White House officials said the work continues and were still expecting to provide recommendations “in advance of the next presidential transition.”
Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said it would be better to err on the side of caution and keep more documents in safe storage. And although the U.S. government should probably revisit how and why documents are classified, she said, until the nation figures that out, the documents “need to be turned over to the National Archives and we need the best, easiest mechanism to do it.”
“The most important thing is to make sure that state secrets remain secret,” she said.
Generally speaking, when a president leaves the White House, he has to sort through all the stuff he's accumulated. That’s what Biden is doing now as he prepares to leave office. He is allowed to take personal items, like diaries and family photos. But most of the papers and memos — and especially classified documents — are sent to the National Archives under the Presidential Records Act.
The 1978 law requires the preservation of presidential documents as property of the U.S. government. It was passed in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, when a collection of secret tapes that President Richard Nixon had considered destroying played a defining role.
But the policies meant to control the handling of the nation’s secrets are haphazardly enforced among top officials and rely almost wholly on good faith. Classified documents have been turning up in the garages and storage units and offices of government officials off and on for decades, from presidents and vice presidents to Cabinet members and staff across multiple administrations stretching as far back as Jimmy Carter.
When former officials discover they are in possession of such materials, they typically turn them over to authorities and that's the end of the matter. But Trump refused to give back boxes of classified material he took after he left office in 2021, prompting an unprecedented FBI seizure of thousands of pages of records.
Trump was indicted on dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally retaining sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing efforts to get them back.
The Justice Department dismissed the case after Trump was elected, citing a long-standing policy prohibiting prosecutions against sitting presidents.
Trump had documents stored in various places around the private club where guests came and went, including a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom and a storage room.
The documents included “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries, United States nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” according to the indictment against him.
When Biden left the vice presidency in early 2017, he put items in his garage and at a think tank he planned to lead. In his telling, Biden was surprised to learn he had classified documents in his possession, wasn't sure what they were and turned them over right away.
“They found some documents in a box — you know, a locked cabinet, or at least a closet,” Biden said in early 2023 in his first comments about the discovery. “And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box. And they did what they should have done: They immediately called the Archives — immediately called the Archives, turned them over to the Archives."
Biden said he never intended to retain the documents, which were first discovered in November 2022 by a personal attorney at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. He reported the discovery, and subsequent searches of his home turned up more material, including hand-written notes.
When Justice Department officials sought to investigate, Biden and his attorneys cooperated; the president sat for an interview with special counsel Robert Hur, tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into the matter.
The special counsel's final report listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. The papers were marked as classified or later assessed to contain classified information.
The majority of the documents, Hur’s report stated, appeared to have been mistakenly removed from government offices, though he also detailed some items that Biden appeared to knowingly retain. Hur concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.
“The special counsel acknowledged I cooperated completely. I did not throw up any roadblocks. I sought no delays,” Biden said after report was released.
Legally, the report was a win for Biden, clearing away any criminality. But politically, the discussion about his mental acuity the report raised led to concerns about his ability to seek reelection, concerns that only grew louder and more persistent after his disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Biden bowed out of the race, giving Vice President Kamala Harris only a few months to pull together a campaign that normally would be years in the making. It ended with Trump winning the 2024 election and about take over the White House once again.
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