OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump took many more official documents when he left office than then-Vice President Joe Biden did (“White House attacks GOP criticism of Biden’s classified document handling,” Web, Jan. 16). The mainstream media points to this disparity to claim that Mr. Trump’s sin is worse than President Biden’s. In fact, it is the scant number of documents taken by Mr. Biden that gives real cause for concern.
Mr. Trump took a large trove of documents from the White House. Most were not classified, but many were. The abundance of Trump documents suggests someone threw documents into boxes helter-skelter, with no focus on classified documents.
Mr. Biden’s actions, on the other hand, suggest a repeated focus on classified documents. There’s been no claim that Mr. Biden took non-classified government documents, which suggests a focus on classified material. It appears that government documents taken from Mr. Biden’s house to his newly formed Washington think tank were largely — if not wholly — classified, suggesting they were deliberately selected.
The lawyers said they found a classified page separate from other documents in Mr. Biden’s home library. This suggests the page was being reviewed or had slipped from a larger document that was being reviewed.
In sum, Sherlock Holmes might say the apparent lack of a large trove of purloined documents is a dog that doesn’t bark.
JIM DUEHOLM
Washington
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