Biden broke his silence and said that he was "surprised" by the discovery. However, as expected, he cited counsel in saying no more and asking no questions. However, this is one explanation (to quote the President) on "how this could possibly happen?"...nypost.com/2023/01/10/bid…
...Biden not only would accept a million dollars to discuss diplomacy at Penn, but he wrote a book that detailed his work in countries like Ukraine (one of the reported subjects of these highly classified documents). thehill.com/opinion/white-…
...What the President did not explain is why he was "surprised." Those documents were presumably not placed in his office for the benefit for third parties. He did not say whether he did review or request such classified material.
...Biden said "I don't know what's in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were." It was a bit jumbled. Presumably, he is saying that his lawyers suggested that he not ask what the documents were."...
...The question is why. If the President was committed to addressing any national security risk, he would want to know and then want to offer any recollection on how or when they might have been used.
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I was struck by the timeline laid out by the Attorney General. It took two days to inform the DOJ. There was not an assessment until a week after the discovery. But the date that stood out was that on Dec. 20th it was personal counsel who found the latest document.
...It is unclear why personal counsel and not the FBI was searching through this material given the earlier filings and disclosures. There also would appear a third discovery of classified material.
...In fairness to the FBI, they also allowed the Trump team to identify material while asking for greater security. However, there were two separate findings in unsecure locations. It is not clear if the FBI asked for the opportunity to go through these spaces...
The NY Times is reporting that prosecutors are moving to charge Hunter on relatively modest charges. nytimes.com/2023/01/11/us/… The focus will not be on the influence peddling schemes. I discussed earlier how such charges could be used to defuse the scandal. jonathanturley.org/2022/08/03/the…
...The timing is interesting. As pressure builds for Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Biden, the hope was that he would (as with Trump) include other matters under investigation. This move, however, could effectively close off the influence peddling scandal...
...Garland could claim that the "other" Biden issues are now addressed and confine any special counsel to the classified document controversy...
Years ago, some of us were attacked for questioning the impact of the Russian trolling operation on the election. jonathanturley.org/2018/03/05/bew… One had to accept that Trump was propelled into office on a wave of Russian disinformation. Now the Washington Post has recognized reality...
...It is citing a study showing what seemed obvious that the Russian operation was not significant in terms of its impact. foxnews.com/media/wapo-adm…
...As I wrote in 2018, the work of a dozen Russians was never credible as a major influence given our existing divisions and rancor: "the sheer premise of the operation was moronic. It was like trying to speed the descent of a falling locomotive by jumping up and down on it."
The Fifth Circuit has struck down the federal ban on bump stocks. The decision turned on the statutory definition of a machine gun, which refers to a “single function of the trigger.” ...
...The decision sets up a strong basis for a Supreme Court review since two other circuits have reached contrary conclusion. The court often looks to a split in the circuits before granting review...
...The split comes down literally to a finger pull. For challengers, a single pull of the trigger does not result in automatic fire. Rather, it is the bump stock that is facilitating the rapid figure of a semi-automatic weapon...
One benefit of being speakerless is that C-Span has control of the cameras and the public can see what is occurring outside of the usual narrow camera frame...
...For political junkies, it has been fascinating to watch the combinations of members in negotiation. Since sessions are supposed to be public, it allows citizens to actually see what they would see if they were in the gallery...
...C-Span has hardly been subtle in pointing out that these shots would normally be barred by the House. The service has long chafed at the rigid framing imposed by the House...
The date of Schiff’s non-public letter in November 2020 is notable: Earlier that year, I wrote a column criticizing him for pushing for censorship in a letter on social media. His office promptly objected to any suggestion that Schiff supported censorship.thehill.com/opinion/judici…
...We now know Schiff was actively seeking to censor specific critics on social media. After all, criticizing his investigations or staff must, by definition, be misinformation — right?
...His office also indicated they knew Twitter was using shadowing-banning or other suppressive techniques. Twitter was asked to “label and reduce the visibility of any content.” Twitter, however, drew the line with Schiff, stating, “no, this isn’t feasible/we don’t do this.”