It was always going to be something, but yeah, this particular thing is vexing.

I'm hoping this is a devious way to get the pee tape made public.

Given how fucked up the media ecosystem is, and that I don't trust anyone to be straightforwardly truthful anymore, I will never know the answer to this. But I'd love to know how common "hey, National Archives, we found a couple of pages of classified documents when we were cleaning out an office" incidents have been in the past. Is this strange, or completely ordinary?

Given the nature of overclassification and raw numbers of documents I'd be shocked if it didn't happen routinely. Remember that one of the Hillary "classified" documents was just a public news story about something classified, but the way such things work if the article is part of government communications and about something classified it's still considered classified even if it was from page one of the NYT.

My working theory is that the documents were not classified when they were stored and a later change in policy made them classified, but of course since they hadn't been classified when they were stored there wasn't an easy way to know where they'd end up being.

5: Would private lawyers likely have enough knowledge to realize a document they found was retroactively classified? I assumed they found some actual markings.

I would assume that the people in charge of dealing with file cabinets in the VP's old office are specifically chosen to have a deep knowledge of exactly these kinds of issues.

(Unless, of course, we're talking about someone like Trump. In that case they'd be chosen by how deferential they are to him on twitter and/or whether Russia is willing to pay their salary.)

6: This is my assumption as well. If the documents turn out not to have been even marked I'm going to be super annoyed.

@3 - I suspect that it is common for sufficiently important elected officials, and uncommon for government workers. I expect that the kind of laxity that would get a low-level analyst fired (or worse) is not uncommon in Congress or the upper echelons of the Executive branch.

But this is why the messaging on Trump should have been "this broken man is a pathological liar and too incompetent to satisfy even the most minor obligations" and not "OMG. He had TOP SECRET documents! He MUST be planning to sell secrets to the Saudis!"

Okay, the thing with Trump was that he was expressly refusing to turn over documents after repeated requests. That's not incompetence, that's deliberate wrongdoing.

Yes, but while simple carelessness on Trump's part the Archives and DOJ would have treaded lightly on, it was his impunity that stood out and prompted search warrants (after too long), there was indeed some messaging like "any lax treatment of classified documents must be an awful offense." Probably not by anyone who mattered, but it was in the air.

Also "classified" is a low bar and involves a lot of stuff where there's no real danger, Trump's documents involved stuff like SCI documents that involve genuinely strict rules. If Biden had SCI documents in that filing cabinet or in his garage with his vette then that's a legitimate scandal. Odds of that are very low.

@11-13

Completely agree. But so many of my relatives were convinced that the mere fact of his retention of classified documents proved that he was going to sell secrets to (variously) the Saudis, the Russians, or the Israelis.

That fantasy is now biting us on the ass.

I still assume he planned to sell/give away state secrets for the sheer chasing-feeling-of-status thing he does. I think he kept as much as possible out of laziness and moving the way I packed up a dorm room at age 19. But of course he's going to try to profit and gain status any way he can. That's the Trump brain.

I don't think it's ridiculous to assume that the Saudis got something for the billions of dollars they've given to the Trump family. I don't think that's necessary to explain Trump's behavior or to understand why it's wrong, but it remains plausible that he was in fact selling info to the Saudis. Especially since it's been more-or-less leaked that several of the documents were about the Iran nuclear program (which isn't of much interest to Trump but is of a lot of interest to the Saudis!).

1 to 14.last.

"Fantasy," as you call it, is not the result of a particular fact pattern. It's a technique that people use to convert truth into useful information. The raw material isn't irrelevant, but it's not terribly important.

I will also say that if the Biden documents are all bullshit like advance notice of travel plans for a couple of weeks in 2007, I think anyone who knows what they are and hasn't leaked it to the press is irresponsible.

My (bullshit) theory is that they're waiting to make sure that none of them are bad before leaking 18. They want to make sure that the story doesn't keep going as more documents get found. Find all the documents first, and then you don't get surprised by their contents.

I think it's all a planned trap to get the House Republicans to try to impeach Biden. Rope-a-dope as Muhammad Ali put it.

Or -- alternate theory- Joe's diverting attention from Hunter - what a great dad!

There was a story the other week about Kushner sharing a PDB with MBS.

That sounds almost as bad as sharing PBRs and engaging in PDA.

At least I know what your acronyms mean.

Does all this classified documents fooferaw make any sense at all? If there's important information in a document, couldn't Trump or Biden just photocopy the document, and give the classified document back? That is - if either of them wanted to do something shady with the document.

Trump is too lazy to do that.

25: Doesn't he have minions?

They are also lazy.

24
Does all this classified documents fooferaw make any sense at all? If there's important information in a document, couldn't Trump or Biden just photocopy the document, and give the classified document back? That is - if either of them wanted to do something shady with the document.

Just spitballing here, but...

Having a classified document by accident isn't a crime. A disciplinary offense at work, maybe, but not a crime. Copying one is. So plausible deniability goes out the window.

Classified documents aren't stored in the same place as copiers. Once you take one to a copier you're breaking the the biggest rule there is about this stuff. Having a copy of it increases the risk to you and any conspirators just as much as it increases your ability sell it.

Do copies actually increase your ability to sell it? It's not like Trump, or anyone who would steal and try to sell classified documents, is particularly trustworthy. If Trump handed you a document and told you it was classified, but it wasn't in the classification folder, would you believe him?

Copying one is.

I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. That's something that hadn't occurred to me, but makes sense.

29: Try the eclectic web magazine instead. The subscription rate is pretty good, too.

24.last had occurred to me, but the others hadn't - thanks!

I wonder, too, if the USG uses copy-protection on its classified documents. You can't photocopy currency, for example, unless you have a very old photocopier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

It doesn't look right regarding.

Regardless.