Judging Freedom - Biden Classified Document Scandal

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, January 12th, 2023. It's a few minutes after 4 o'clock here on the east coast of the United States. of a second, I want to say batch, B-A-T-C-H, because we don't know how many were involved, of documents found at the home of President Biden, documents which are either classified or national defense information. The Justice Department did what it's supposed to do. First, a little bit of factual background. Documents were found back on November 2nd, before the midterm elections, in an office formerly used by former Vice President Biden. So this was the time period between 2017 to 2021, after he was vice president and before he was the president of the United States, he was the name person and sort of the star of a think tank on foreign affairs and diplomacy owned and operated by the University of Pennsylvania and Ivy League School.

They established, even though they're in Philadelphia, they established the think tank in D.C. so as to accommodate the former vice president and future president. In that office, in the process of vacating that office, those going through the office before they took the furniture out and the landlord leased it to somebody else, found national defense information classified secrets, the same category of documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago. Not 360 like at Mar-a-Lago, but 10. And apparently they were serious national defense information secrets, and they pertained to or they were intelligence information about Great Britain, Iran, and Ukraine.

Okay, it took two months for that to come out. However, in that two-month period, as soon as the Attorney General of the United States heard about it, he designated the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago to investigate this. That U.S. Attorney, the Chief Federal Prosecutor for the northern part of the state of Illinois working out of Chicago, that federal prosecutor was appointed by Donald Trump. He's not a Biden appointee. This morning, we learned that a second batch, again, I use that word because we don't know the number, of similar documents were found in Joe Biden's garage where he keeps his prize Corvette. I didn't even know that he had a Corvette or that he drove, but anyway, he's got this prize

Corvette. It's a beautiful car if you like these kind of cars. and in the garage, in a locked garage were kept these documents, and they found one document in his library in his home. They searched the rest of the home. They didn't find any elsewhere. They searched his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, lovely beach town in Delaware. They didn't find any documents there. In response to all of that, the Attorney General of the United States at 1.15 this afternoon, within two hours of having been informed of the discovery of documents in Delaware, appointed a special counsel to investigate. Here's Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, making that announcement. Earlier today, I signed an order appointing Robert Herr, a special counsel for the matter I've just described. The document authorizes him to investigate whether any person

or entity violated the law in connection with this matter. The special counsel will not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the department, but he must comply with the regulations, procedures, and policies of the department. Now, Robert Herr was appointed to a senior position in the Trump Justice Department by Donald Trump. He was in charge of many, many criminal prosecutions. He then went to the president and said, I want to go back to Maryland. I don't want to work in D.C. anymore. Can you appoint me as the United States Senate appointed by Donald Trump. Robert Herr is a serious career, tough prosecutor, a Republican, in my view, an ideal person to do this, a person who doesn't have any political connection whatsoever to Joe Biden, to the Biden family, or to the Democrats.

Let's make no mistake about this. Just like the Jack Smith investigation of Donald Trump, this is a criminal investigation to see whether Joe Biden or anybody in his behalf or anybody unbeknownst to him brought these documents there. The whole thing is a little odd. I mean, Joe Biden is vacating an office in D.C. that he hasn't used in two years. You send your lawyers there to scour the office before you're vacating it? Usually you'd send a moving company there to pack up what's there. Why do you send your personal lawyers? So I think there's probably a little bit more here than meets the eye. How seriously does Joe Biden take the concept of classified documents? Here's what he told Scott Pelley last summer. When you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at Mar-a-Lago,

what did you think to yourself? How that could possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible? And I thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? By that I mean names of people who helped, etc. And it's just totally irresponsible. All right. So he either is a great actor

and thought he'd never get caught with his own set of classified materials, or he's a goofball and he completely forgot that he had classified materials in his former office and in his garage of his residence in Wilmington, Delaware and one of them in his personal private library in his residence in Wilmington, uh, Delaware. Uh, here's a little bit more from the, um, you can't call it a press conference cause he didn't take any questions. He never takes questions. You know, I'm a fan of Merrick Harlan because I know him. I know his brain. I think he's a very, very fair guy and a very fair, uh, judge. He's a lot more pro government than I am I am and I was when I was on the bench. But boy, he is dull as dishwater. Here is another quote, another clip from what he said this afternoon.

I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity. But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. This appointment underscores for the public the Department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. I am confident that Mr. Herr will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department. All right, within minutes of all this, here's a tweet that came out. See if you can guess who said this. The special prosecutor assigned to get the get Trump case, Jack Smith, question mark after Smith as if that is his real name, is a Trump-hating thug whose wife is a serial and open Trump hater whose friends and other family members are even worse,

and as a prosecutor in Europe, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person. Smith is known as an unfair savage, in quotes, unfair savage, and is best friends with the craziest Trump haters, including Lisa Monaco, who runs the Department of Injustice. And Smith himself may even be a criminal. And Smith himself may even be a criminal. All right. You know who said that? Donald Trump. Gosh. I would think that President Trump would have taken an opportunity to do one of two things. Praise Merrick Garland for appointing a special prosecutor, for appointing as a special prosecutor a person Donald Trump appointed twice and was twice confirmed by the Senate, a person whose reputation for being honest,

decent, professional, and aggressive is impeccable, or zip, say nothing. Instead, he decides to attack the person who's investigating him. Boy, I always end these solos, which is just me talking to you, there's no guest here, by saying more as we get it. I'm chuckling because there's going to be a lot more. There's going to be a lot more from Donald Trump about the investigation of him, the investigations, there's going to be a lot more from Donald Trump about whatever we learn was discovered in Joe Biden's garage. And there probably should be some more from Joe Biden. My friend and former colleague, Peter Doocy, who's the Fox News White House correspondent, asked the president today, what were you thinking? It's a great question because there's another clip with Scott Pelley where Joe Biden looks in the camera and says,

referring to Donald Trump, what was he thinking when he kept those documents? So there are similarities, you know, the failure to safeguard national defense secrets. And there are dissimilarities. Trump moved them or is alleged to have moved them, hidden them, even mutilated them. Trump boasted about taking them. Biden says he knows nothing about it, doesn't remember how they got there and doesn't even know what they are. Who's telling the truth? Who remembers?

Who doesn't? Who's trying to trick us? How will all this end? More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.