Remember the tale of Donald Trump and the ‘illegal hoarding’ of the top-secret documents? It was only last summer. On 8 August, the FBI raided the 45th President’s home in Mar-a-Lago to seize back highly classified material. An image of the reclaimed files promptly leaked to the press. Over-excited pundits started talking about Trump’s ‘Al Capone moment’ – the great villain had been caught out for an unsensational crime.
Since then, the case has been stuck in the administrative cogs of the Justice Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, as special counsel for the two most grave investigations into Trump – the documents one and the one into Trump’s role in events leading up to 6 January 2021.
Well, in an amusing twist, Joe Biden now also stands accused of illegally hoarding top-secret documents from his time as vice president. On 2 November, just days before the mid-term elections, the 46th President’s personal lawyers discovered ten files containing reportedly sensitive intelligence about Ukraine, Iran and our very own United Kingdom.
This story is catnip for dark Republican theories about the real motives for hounding Donald Trump
Biden is now a sitting president, which affords him immense legal protections.
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