I’ll quote myself here, since you probably missed the last part of my comment…
At the very least, what Biden did should have resulted in him being stripped of his security clearance, and barred him from ever holding a position in government that requires that level of security clearance. Period.
And it should have been the same for Trump. Period.
In my opinion, that should also have applied to Hillary Clinton, as well. And, as I said…that is the minimum that should happen when someone in government “mishandles” classified information. But, that term also Implies some kind of accidental or mistaken action has taken place.
Like Hillary, using a private server out of a sense of convenience, rather than an emphasis on security. She should have known better, especially as she was someone that represented a high-value target for foreign intelligence gathering efforts. That’s the entire reason why government officials are supposed to use government systems for all their official business…so that their communications can be monitored for intrusions or tampering.
Or Biden, who took some of his work home with him, and clearly forgot to bring it back again. Even the special prosecutor in charge of investigating him, came to the conclusion that nothing nefarious was intended in retaining those documents. Biden’s case was definitely worse than what Hillary did, but still doesn’t rise to the level of “criminal intent”.
But, then you have Trump’s case. The reason why this is different, is because of what Trump did, when government officials tried to get the documents he retained, back from him. Not only did he refuse to return them after months of efforts by the National Archives to get them back…he instructed his personal attorney to lie to them and say that he never had them, even though he knew he did. He then had some employees move the documents from one location to another in order to try and avoid returning them. Then he claimed that they belonged to him, once they were finally recovered using a federal search warrant.
Anyone who claims that these cases are “all the same” needs to pull their heads out of their asses. The biggest and largely the only difference between a mistake and a crime, is intent. I can say this without a shred of hypocrisy, because that distinction is an objective fact. The hypocrisy arises from pretending that it isn’t.
“Taking your work home with you” is a figure of speech. The point being, he didn’t seem to be intentionally retaining documents beyond his term in office.
One of the biggest factors in determining intent in cases like these, is “cooperation”. The very least any one of these people can do when it becomes clear that they’ve held onto something they shouldn’t have, is to give it back with an acknowledgement that “mistakes were made”.
That still should result in losing their security clearance, at least. Because anyone handling classified information that carelessly, should not be allowed to handle it anymore.
I’ll quote myself here, since you probably missed the last part of my comment…
In my opinion, that should also have applied to Hillary Clinton, as well. And, as I said…that is the minimum that should happen when someone in government “mishandles” classified information. But, that term also Implies some kind of accidental or mistaken action has taken place.
Like Hillary, using a private server out of a sense of convenience, rather than an emphasis on security. She should have known better, especially as she was someone that represented a high-value target for foreign intelligence gathering efforts. That’s the entire reason why government officials are supposed to use government systems for all their official business…so that their communications can be monitored for intrusions or tampering.
Or Biden, who took some of his work home with him, and clearly forgot to bring it back again. Even the special prosecutor in charge of investigating him, came to the conclusion that nothing nefarious was intended in retaining those documents. Biden’s case was definitely worse than what Hillary did, but still doesn’t rise to the level of “criminal intent”.
But, then you have Trump’s case. The reason why this is different, is because of what Trump did, when government officials tried to get the documents he retained, back from him. Not only did he refuse to return them after months of efforts by the National Archives to get them back…he instructed his personal attorney to lie to them and say that he never had them, even though he knew he did. He then had some employees move the documents from one location to another in order to try and avoid returning them. Then he claimed that they belonged to him, once they were finally recovered using a federal search warrant.
Anyone who claims that these cases are “all the same” needs to pull their heads out of their asses. The biggest and largely the only difference between a mistake and a crime, is intent. I can say this without a shred of hypocrisy, because that distinction is an objective fact. The hypocrisy arises from pretending that it isn’t.
When did he live in a closet at Penn?
I never did that.
Two things can be unacceptable even though one is worse…
Obviously
“Taking your work home with you” is a figure of speech. The point being, he didn’t seem to be intentionally retaining documents beyond his term in office.
One of the biggest factors in determining intent in cases like these, is “cooperation”. The very least any one of these people can do when it becomes clear that they’ve held onto something they shouldn’t have, is to give it back with an acknowledgement that “mistakes were made”.
That still should result in losing their security clearance, at least. Because anyone handling classified information that carelessly, should not be allowed to handle it anymore.