When things get really interesting in the brutal world of partisan politics, we often say “Grab the popcorn!” And in the case of the deepening Biden classified documents scandal, the suggestion couldn’t be more appropriate: this thing is turning into a classic “whodunnit” movie, worthy of the silver screen days of old.
Among the myriad of questions, one is paramount–and its answer is potentially the most revealing:
Who leaked Biden’s documents and why?
The conspiracy theorist keyboard jockeys — God knows the last thing we need is even more conspiracy loons — have been spinning their theories on social media from the outset, but the question remains: Who hung Biden out to dry and for what purpose? Prior to the leak to the media, only a select group of White House and Justice Department officials knew about the document violation and potential security breach.
As The New York Times reported, the original plot — the plot to hide the scandal in the first place — was initially designed by eight of Biden’s closest confidants, with apparent approval from Merrick Garland’s Justice Department. (I know; try to control your shock and amazement.)
The handful of advisors who were aware of the initial discovery on Nov. 2 — just six days before the critical midterm elections — gambled that without going public, they could convince the DOJ that the matter was little more than a “good-faith mistake,” unlike Donald Trump’s “hoarding of documents at his Florida estate.” (Don’t you just love the NYT’s venomous descriptions of all things Trump?)
However, the plot to hide the scandal was abruptly leaked to CBS News, 68 days after Biden’s personal attorney “discovered” the first batch of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center — funded in part by anonymous Chinese donations. Why did it take so long for the documents to be “uncovered” and ultimately leaked?
It’s also curious what Biden’s personal attorneys were originally looking for — and why — and also, how easy it is to link most of Joe’s scandals to the ChiComs, either directly or through his crackhead son Hunter.
So, as the damning revelations continue to drop, the Biden White House suspicions continue to grow, and the whodunnit plot continues to thicken. Hence, grab the popcorn.
Here’s more, via the NY Times:
The goal for the Biden team, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity, was to win the trust of Justice Department investigators and demonstrate that the president and his team were cooperating fully. In other words, they would head off any serious legal repercussions by doing exactly the opposite of what the Biden lawyers had seen the Trump legal team do.
In the short term, at least, the bet seems to have backfired. Mr. Biden’s silence while cooperating with investigators did not forestall the appointment of a special counsel, as his aides had hoped, but still resulted in a public uproar once it became clear that the White House had hidden the situation from the public for more than two months. Mr. Biden’s advisers still hope that the trust they believe they have engendered with investigators by not litigating the matter in public may yet pay off in the long run, by convincing the special counsel that nothing nefarious took place.
Sorry, no. That is unless, as Trump might say, “totally unscrupulous” Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel for the public appearance’s sake, and perhaps, as well, to hold the House Republican wolves at bay. Again, no. That ship sailed long ago, Joe, and it appears that your clock is about to strike midnight — at least to the extent of dashing your plan to seek re-election in 2024.
Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, told the NYT:
We understand that there’s a tension between the need to be cooperative with an ongoing DOJ investigation, and rightful demands for additional public information. And so we’re trying to strike that balance and being as clear as we can.
Memo to Mr. Sams: You’re trying to strike a balance and be as clear as you can? Why don’t you drop by one of embattled White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre‘s daily “Masterpiece Theater” performances in the briefing room and get back to us with your thoughts about how “balanced and clear” that clown show plays out every day?
The Biden trickle (pun intended).
More than 10 days after details about Biden’s classified documents were first made public, specific details of where they were initially found and by whom, and what they reveal remain evasive. Why? Somebody was compelled to leak the documents to CBS, presumably to hurt Biden’s political career. If so, the timing seems about right. With the midterms behind us and the 2024 general election campaign drawing nearer, why wait any longer? Besides, if Biden isn’t going to kick himself to the curb, why not do it for him, ASAP?
The Bottom Line
Seems to me the dots could be connected back to that initial somebody who leaked Biden’s classified documents to CBS News— unless, perhaps, the chain of command was broken along the way. But we’re talking about a small circle of Biden’s top aides. Then again, I was never a fan of whodunnit movies and even less of a fan of the board game “Clue.”
UPDATE:
NY Times Just Revealed Who Came up With
WH's Slow Roll of Biden Docs Story
The past week has been a cavalcade of misdirection and non-answers from the Biden administration, as the mainstream media increasingly becomed disenchanted with the White House, most visibly in the form of Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Jean-Pierre’s ongoing contretemps with the press corps has only grown with the leak of the explosive story on classified documents being found at several locations connected with President Joe Biden, including at the Biden Penn Center and inside the garage of his Maryland home.
Then on Thursday came the news that the Biden DOJ and the White House had agreed to stay quiet about the emergence of those classified documents, in a report by the Washington Post. As my colleague Nick Arama pointed out, a couple major missing puzzle pieces remain about the docs story:
This failure to be straight with the American people prevented Americans from finding out about Joe Biden’s actions before the midterm election.
The White House also hasn’t explained why they had a personal attorney searching through Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center, to begin with. That indicates something else we haven’t been told yet.
WaPo reported that the WH was “blindsided” by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special counsel to look into the document scandal: [emphasis mine]
After President Joe Biden’s legal team discovered a cache of classified documents last year at his old office at a Washington, DC, think tank, they immediately contacted the White House counsel’s office, which then notified the National Archives.
Biden’s attorneys were determined to abide strictly by the rulebook to avoid the political firestorm that encircled Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, after the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August.
That’s why many in the White House were blindsided, according to The Washington Post, when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified information.
It was a p.r. move, done in the best interests of Biden and his hangers-on, not the American people, apparently. Recall that Biden personal attorney and Special Counsel, Richard Sauber was the one who found “new” classified documents earlier this week.
Notice, also, the shrill tone of Joe Biden’s replies to media questions over the past day about the documents. He snapped at one reporter, saying it ‘quite frankly bugs’ him” that this is a topic for him to respond to.
With a new story published Friday by the New York Times, though, many of these seemingly separate puzzle pieces are fitting together. And there was a major revelation to be culled from the NY Times’ report, which I only saw thanks to a new piece from my Hot Air colleague John Sexton. He highlights exactly who inside the White House public relations team pushed for this slow roll scheme–and it’s a name many long-time political watchers will recognize:
Today the NY Times published its take on the behind-the-scenes decisions about this potential scandal. The Times points to another top Biden adviser as one of the few people who were in-the-know from the start: Crisis PR specialist Anita Dunn.
Sexton then dropped this excerpt from the piece: [emphasis mine]
The handful of advisers who were aware of the initial discovery on Nov. 2 — six days before the midterm elections — gambled that without going public, they could convince the Justice Department that the matter was little more than a minor, good-faith mistake, unlike former President Donald J. Trump’s hoarding of documents at his Florida estate…
The discussions on how to deal with the matter, at least at the start, were confined to the husband-and-wife pair of Bob Bauer, the president’s top personal attorney, and Anita Dunn, a White House senior adviser; Mike Donilon, the president’s longtime confidant and speechwriter; Mr. Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Stuart F. Delery, the White House counsel; and Richard Sauber, a White House lawyer overseeing the response to investigations, according to people familiar with the situation.
Now, let’s back up a little and look at what we have here: Richard Sauber, who said he (conveniently) happened to find more documents where they weren’t supposed to be–even after the WH assured us the search for classified documents was complete; Joe Biden’s own sister; another presidential attorney, Bob Bauer; and Bauer’s wife, Anita Dunn.
Sexton reminds us why Dunn’s name will seem like deja vu to some readers:
If you’re not familiar with Dunn, she was the person behind the war on Fox News during the Obama administration. She’s been in and out of the White House since the start of the Biden administration. She helped come up with the phrase “ultra MAGA” …
In other words it was no accident that the White House and Joe Biden aren’t prepared for media questions about this–they never thought they would get caught in this mess, once the Justice Department reviewed any documents. You might say Dunn and the rest of them… chose poorly.