Classified docs haunted Biden, Pence & Clinton, but not in same way as Trump

Why you’re reading this: Donald Trump is getting arraigned, again. But this time around, the court drama revolves around the classified documents that he hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago residence after he left the White House. His supporters and Republican allies have long argued that the erstwhile president of the United States is a victim of a justice system that has been politically weaponised against him while letting off his political rivals for similar alleged wrongdoings. 

3 things you need to know

• Tuesday marks the day of Trump's second arraignment this year.
• However, he isn't the first US politician accused of being in possession of sensitive government records.
• The case has brought similar controversies involving Joe Biden, Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton to light. 

The Trump team. What is its argument? 

Allies and supporters of Trump have desperately attempted to shift the focus of the arraignment to leaders like US President Joe Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence, and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all who have been, at some point, embroiled in classified material debacles of their own. 

Doc discovery [Part 1]: Joe Biden

Beginning with the sitting president, an attorney of Joe Biden landed upon a “small number” of classified documents that dated back to his time as the vice president. The discovery was made during a search at a Washington DC office space last year. Soon after, the material was presented to the Justice Department, The Independent reported. 

This wasn't all, though. Another batch was found at Biden's Delaware home during a thorough search by federal law enforcement agents. Earlier this year in January, US Attorney General Merrick Garland created a special counsel to look into the documents. The probe is ongoing, and Biden remains free of charges so far. 

President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, May 13, 2021. (Image: AP)

Doc discovery [Part 2]: Mike Pence

Earlier this month, the Justice Department shut down an investigation into Mike Pence and the material that was retrieved from his residence in Indiana by FBI agents. The case did not bring in allegations of obstruction to the surface, resulting in no charges. His advisor Devin O’Malley concluded that the department completed “a thorough and unrestricted search of five hours" and removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel," the Associated Press reported. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence in the Library of Congress, Feb. 16, 2023, in Washington. (Image: AP)

Doc discovery [Part 3]: Hillary Clinton

“Lock her up” slogans continue to be chanted at GOP rallies targetting Hillary Clinton, the former first lady of the US and the woman who locked horns with Trump in the 2016 presidential polls. Clinton landed in trouble in 2015 for using a private email system for official communications. Then-FBI director James Comey deemed her “extremely careless” in handling sensitive information. 

However, law enforcement officials were unable to find any strong evidence that indicated she deliberately obstructed justice or committed a crime. Comey added that “no reasonable prosecutor” would have taken forward a case against her. "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," he said, according to a statement issued on the website of the FBI.

Hillary Clinton lectures on foreign policy at Rackham Auditorium, Oct. 10, 2019 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Image: AP)

Okay, so what sets Trump's case apart? 

In the cases involving Biden and Pence, both men cooperated with federal law enforcement and handed over the records. In Clinton's case, she did not hinder efforts to recover the communications. But Trump, as per prosecutors, did the quite opposite. His federal indictment states that he allegedly teamed up with his aides and lawyers to take the documents to Mar-a-Lago, and later, hide them from the authorities when officials demanded their return.

Last January, Trump presented 15 heavy boxes containing documents to the National Archives and Records Administration in accordance with the Presidential Records Act. Upon analysis, the agency found that a few documents were missing and there are “certain paper/textual records that we cannot account for”.

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington. (Image: AP)

This coincided with Trump instructing his aides to make space for 80 other boxes inside a storage room situated on the ground floor of his Florida property. As the US Department of Justice began a criminal investigation into it, Trump's aide Walt Nauta started moving around those boxes out of the room they had been in.

From delivering false statements to suggesting that the material be hidden or destroyed, Trump's actions are starkly different from that of his rivals. Today, Trump is not only accused of keeping those documents but also of devising a full-blown conspiracy to conceal them from federal officials and a grand jury.