Mobster source

Mark Vincent’s recent letter to the editor, “More than a lot of Bull” (Dec. 12), uses a convicted mobster for his source and falsely claims that “thousands of documents were found in the Penn Biden Center, a garage and in several private (Biden) residences.” He claims equivalency to the Trump case at Mar-a-Lago.

The Biden case did not involve “thousands of documents” as Vincent alleges. The action to find the documents was initiated by President Biden himself and a small number were discovered. Neither the Justice Department, nor the National Archives were aware of the existence of the documents at the time. This lack of knowledge is a separate issue that I’ll get to at the end of this letter.

A “small” number of documents were found by Biden’s attorneys at the Penn-Biden Center. They immediately notified federal authorities and fully cooperated with the investigation.

Biden’s legal team then searched his residences. One classified document was found at his Wilmington, Delaware, residence. A Biden attorney who had a classified clearance met with federal authorities and they discovered five more pages, including in the locked garage. No search warrant was required. Both President Biden and his legal team fully cooperated with federal authorities and the entire set of events took place between November 2022 and January 2023.

Former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case included more than a year and a half of attempts to retrieve all the documents in Trump’s possession, with the former president and his attorneys attempting to block them at every stage of the investigation. This resulted in the Justice Department finally having to resort to the now famous search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, under court order in August of 2022, resulting in the recovery of hundreds of pages of classified documents.

Meanwhile, former President Trump used various absurd theories to justify his possession of the documents, including the wacky idea that he could simply “think” them unclassified. He has demanded the return of the documents, claiming they are his personal property and there is evidence that he shared them with people having no authority to view them. The Presidential Records Act clearly states that all presidential and vice-presidential records belong to the National Archives. They do not belong to any individual.

This is so far beyond the Biden case that it is laughable to even

try to compare the two, but there is a far bigger issue here. Why doesn’t our government know where every classified document is at all times? How can they lose track of them? They should know that copy number one was given to person X and that it was never returned. Why don’t they know this? Document security is a critical issue that no administration seems to have taken very seriously.

Stan Conger Bishop