OPINION:
During his press conference last week, President Biden said it was his vice presidential or senatorial staffers who mishandled the boxes of classified documents and put them in his garage in Delaware (“Biden too ‘hazy,’ ‘elderly’ to charge for willful mishandling of classified docs: special counsel,” web, Feb. 8).
In other words, Mr. Biden blamed others for not properly handling the classified documents. He took no personal responsibility, even though these people worked for him.
In the military, we have a saying: You may delegate your authority to others, but you do not delegate your responsibility. That means you can have others undertake functions on your behalf, but ultimately you are responsible for whatever they do. The best example of this is the commanding officer being relieved of command when his ship runs aground even though he was not on the bridge at the time. It is called strict liability.
Based on his own admissions, Mr. Biden is not competent to be the commanding officer of a tugboat, let alone the U.S. military. Even more distressing is that the special counsel report basically says the Justice Department should not prosecute him for mishandling classified material because he is incompetent to stand trial.
Cmdr. WAYNE L. JOHNSON
Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (retired)
Alexandria, Virginia
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