Biden’s defenders can argue all they want that his possession of classified documents at his private office and residence, which were immediately handed over to the government, isn’t the same as Trump’s willful attempts to retain a much larger cache of classified documents. But the public won’t make the distinctions displayed in the chart below; in their minds, it’s the same thing, and many will remember Hillary Clinton’s private email server. They’re going to ask, if Trump is being investigated for this, why isn’t Biden, too? (Answer: He is.) It all points to a larger systemic problem, that controls on sensitive government documents simply aren’t rigid enough at the top levels of officialdom.
