President Joe Biden was the subject of a confidential documents scandal on Wednesday and the senior Biden admin. spokesperson John Kirby attempted to defend him.
Instead, his response exposed a clear flaw in the timetable.
What took place?
How challenging would it be for someone to keep confidential materials outside of the appropriate guarded setting? Peter Doocy of Fox News questioned Kirby during the White House press briefing.
He questioned, “How difficult is it to leave a SCIF with secret material?”
High-level intelligence materials may only be examined in a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility, by those with the appropriate security clearance. Some of the documents that were discovered in Biden’s personal office on November 2 reportedly had the classification “sensitive compartmented information,” meaning they should only have been accessed in a SCIF.
The methods for entering and leaving a SCIF remain the same, according to Kirby. Entry is prohibited with personal devices, and papers must be “appropriately secured” before being removed.
Doocy inquired more about the process to follow if papers were improperly taken from a SCIF. Kirby described the procedure before seizing the opportunity to support Biden.
“I believe if you do it accidentally or if you do it and you discover, you know, you do not have it secured in a locked container, you understand, you self-report,” Kirby said. “That’s precisely what the president did: self-reported.”
What’s the issue?
It took at least six years for the data to be discovered and subsequently disclosed, despite the fact that Biden’s attorneys “self-reported” to the National Archives and Justice Dept.
Biden’s possession of the majority of the inappropriately discovered top-secret papers dates from his time serving as vice president. But certain sensitive documents from Biden’s time in the U.S. Senate were discovered during an FBI investigation last week, which means the revelation of unlawful retention was postponed by more than 10 years. Sen. Biden resigned in January 2009.
Thus, the question of how Biden could have kept some of the allegedly highly secret and only available in SCIF materials for so long still stands.
In fact, it is not “self-reporting” if your lawyer by chance discovers records that have been kept for at least six years while you have classified records scattered around your house and garage, among other places.
