Tangle - More Biden classified documents.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, reporting today from a cold and rainy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before we jump into our main story, which is President Biden's classified documents fiasco and some of the latest news on that, we're following up from our podcast

Starting point is 00:01:11 about 10 or 11 days ago. I have a couple of things I need to tell you. First of all, we have a correction. In Thursday's podcast, we had a quick hit that read Moderna says its new RSV vaccine is 84% effective at preventing coronavirus in older adults, adding that the data will now be available for a peer-reviewed journal. Obviously, Moderna's RSV vaccine is for RSV, not for coronavirus. This mistake was brought to you by three years of the pandemic pandemic where every virus was COVID. This is our 76th correction in Tangle's 182-week history and our first correction since January 10th. I track those corrections and place them at the top of the podcast in an effort to maximize transparency with readers. I also wanted to share a bit of reader and listener feedback.

Starting point is 00:02:05 Last week, I answered a question about the definition of the word woke and how it has changed in today's politics. Several readers wrote in to insist that I had omitted a key piece of historical context in my answer, and I think they actually made some good points, namely that the term woke has a deeply rooted history in Black activism dating far back into the 20th century. Vox has a great historical breakdown of that history. We've added a link to it in today's podcast description. All right, with those two things out of the way, we are going to jump in to our quick hit section and then today's main topic. First up, a gunman who killed 10 people during Lunar New Year celebrations in a Los Angeles suburb was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Number two, President Biden's

Starting point is 00:02:56 chief of staff, Ron Klain, is expected to step down in the coming weeks. He'll be replaced by Jeff Zients, the entrepreneur and management consultant who served as Biden's coronavirus response coordinator. Number three, protests in Atlanta against a proposed police training facility turned violent over the weekend after police fatally shot a demonstrator earlier in the week. Number four, Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego is expected to announce his bid for the U.S. Senate in 2024, setting up a showdown with former Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Number five, Google says it will lay off 12,000 people, the latest major tech company, to announce job cuts. Number six, the daughter of Democratic housewhip Catherine Clark from Massachusetts was arrested for an altercation with a Boston police officer after allegedly spray painting an anti-cop message

Starting point is 00:03:45 on a Boston landmark. More classified documents have been found at President Biden's home in Delaware. As CBS2's Christian Benavides reports, six additional documents were seized after a search by the FBI. That FBI search of President Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, turning up even more classified documents. The president now facing fresh criticism from both Republicans and some Democrats. President Biden's personal attorney, Bob Bauer, released a statement in just the last a little over an hour saying that the Justice Department conducted a search of the Wilmington, Delaware home and found additional materials with classified markings. We first covered this story on January 12th. Hours after

Starting point is 00:04:38 publishing that piece and our podcast, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden's handling of those classified documents, creating a historical anomaly where both the current and former president, Donald Trump, are now under simultaneous special counsel investigations. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that investigators for the Justice Department seized six more classified documents from Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home. Investigators retrieved the documents after a 13-hour search of the home, according to Biden's personal lawyer. Biden's lawyers invited federal agents to search the home, though details about the negotiations have remained sparse. The documents were from Biden's time as vice president and in the Senate, and it

Starting point is 00:05:19 was the fourth time classified documents were discovered in his possession over the last few months. The first classified documents in Biden's possession were found on November 2nd, just days before the midterm elections, at the offices of a think tank where Biden worked shortly after his time as vice president. Biden and his lawyers alerted the National Archives to the discovery, which subsequently informed the Justice Department. Nothing about the discovery of those documents was revealed to the public for more than two months. Weeks after that revelation, Biden's lawyers discovered several classified documents in the garage at his Delaware home, and the latest search by federal agents produced a half-dozen more, though investigators did not specify where in the home the documents

Starting point is 00:05:59 were found. The investigation into Biden comes just a few months after former President Donald Trump had his private residence in Mar-a-Lago raided by FBI officials. Trump had been in a protracted fight with the National Archives and FBI agents over classified documents in his possession and has insisted that he declassified the documents before leaving the White House. Trump is under investigation for mishandling the classified documents and obstructing the subsequent investigation. Biden had harshly criticized the former president, though he now faces similar legal troubles. Biden's lawyers have insisted that the two cases are vastly different, noting the length Biden's team has gone to cooperate with investigators, while former President Trump resisted returning any documents, as well as the much smaller number of documents involved. Biden's lawyers have insisted that the two cases are vastly different,

Starting point is 00:06:49 noting the length Biden's team has gone to cooperate with investigators while former President Trump resisted returning any documents. Today, we're going to revisit this case with new commentary since the last time we covered it. We'll be sharing views from the left and the right, and then my tape. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. Many on the left continued to distinguish Biden from Trump, arguing that Trump intentionally kept the documents and misled investigators. Some say the Biden case should not slow down the prosecution of Trump. Others argue the public can grasp the difference between the cases. In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said the Biden document case shouldn't hinder Jack Smith's probe into Trump. One could easily argue that Biden's

Starting point is 00:07:44 lawyers poorly managed the fallout from. One could easily argue that Biden's lawyers poorly managed the fallout from their discovery of classified documents at Biden's office, Rubin wrote. Their actions do not appear in any way to be an effort to conceal or improperly retain documents. As the Post reported last week, the Biden legal team sought to do everything by the book. Biden's attorneys adopted a strategy of caution and deference, making only limited moves in coordination with federal investigators to determine the number of documents involved, their significance, and how they were mishandled. There is no indication that Biden's team could have done anything to avoid the appointment of a special counsel. Unfortunately, all of this is

Starting point is 00:08:19 hard to grasp for the public, which clearly does not understand the fundamental differences between the Trump and Biden investigations. A Quinnipiac poll finds that nearly 40% of Americans think that Biden should be prosecuted, despite the absence of any evidence that he even knew he was in possession of the documents, she said. Nevertheless, the public's confusion should not affect the evaluation of special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the investigation into Trump's situation. Unlike Biden, Trump presided over movement of the documents, personally went through them, failed to return the documents despite subpoenas, and then allowed his lawyers to falsely state that he possessed no more classified documents and made numerous statements arguing that he was entitled to keep them. In Bloomberg, Noah Feldman wrote that the difference is Biden gave the

Starting point is 00:09:04 documents back. We still don't know a lot of important facts about President Joe Biden's retention of classified documents at his Penn-Biden Center office and Delaware home. For that matter, there's a lot we still don't know about former President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Feldman said. What is certain is the legal concept that prosecutors will have to use to determine whether to prosecute either president. Intent. The relevant provision in the Espionage Act is fairly clear. It's a crime if you both willfully retain classified documents and also fail to deliver them on demand to the government official entitled to receive them.

Starting point is 00:09:39 The adverb willfully is standard legal language, a close cousin to knowingly. To act willfully in the legal sense is to act intentionally, consciously, and voluntarily. In practice, this requirement of willfulness could very well mean that Trump committed a crime with respect to the classified material he retained, while Biden did not. Consider that Trump, through representatives, allegedly refused for months to return more than 30 boxes of documents sought by the National Archives, a refusal that eventually prompted the FBI to show up at Mar-a-Lago and seize the material, Feldman said. That refusal sounds very much like it matches the language of the Espionage Act,

Starting point is 00:10:16 which requires both unauthorized retention of classified documents and the refusal to hand them over. In contrast, according to what we know so far, Biden retained, perhaps by accident, what's been described as a small number of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. When the documents were found, his lawyers appear to have promptly handed them over without even needing to be asked. In Slate, Dennis Aftergut said the public can grasp the difference. There are monumental differences between the known facts of the Trump and Biden classified document situations, especially for purposes of the criminal law. Mistakes handling and relocating classified documents are common enough to have a name,

Starting point is 00:10:54 classified spillage. Without willful intent, there is no basis for prosecution. With it, there is, Aftergut said. As to the Mar-a-Lago documents, Trump virtually admitted intentionality, asserting through lawyers that they were his personal property. He spent 18 months blocking the government's attempts to get them back, including by a grand jury subpoena. It took a court-approved FBI search and seizure to reveal the falsity of his lawyer's denial that any more documents were there, and to recover thousands of government documents at the country club. It's not only Biden's lawyer's immediate return of the documents that makes his case different, Aftergood said. The president told the public he was surprised to learn that they were there

Starting point is 00:11:32 and was reportedly angry at former aides who packed up his vice presidential papers years ago. To be sure, Republicans are already attacking his denial, asserting that he's lying. Politicians shorting the truth is hardly unknown. But we are yet to see evidence that Biden had anything to do with the classified documents in storage, whereas the former president has claimed he owned his. So, to date, we have intentionality versus inadvertence, obstruction versus cooperation, playing differences in law and ethics. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to the right's take. Many on the right reject the notion Biden is complying as he says he is. Some call out a double standard in the treatment of Biden and Trump by the Justice Department. Others argue that Biden may actually be in more legal trouble than Trump, given the new details.

Starting point is 00:12:29 In National Review, Andrew McCarthy wrote about why Biden actually consented to an FBI search. The truth of the matter is that, like most criminal suspects as to whom there is already strong evidence of felony offenses, Biden consented to a search knowing that if he did not, newly appointed special counsel Robert Herr would apply for a judicial warrant from a federal judge, McCarthy said. This would promptly have been followed up by a compulsory search in which the FBI ended up seizing even more incriminating evidence, thus making the case for criminal prosecution even stronger. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of

Starting point is 00:13:07 Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. That, in turn, would put more pressure on the Justice Department to recommend an indictment. To try to stave off this chain of political disasters, Biden has decided to pose as a dedicated public servant who cooperates unfailingly with law enforcement because he has nothing to hide.

Starting point is 00:13:43 Don't fall for it. Team Biden has been playing games for two months, McCarthy said. A guy who has nothing to hide does not retain high-priced lawyers to pack up his private office, as Biden did with his Washington think tank, Diggs, where the first batch of highly classified documents was found on November 2nd. Having lawyers pack up is the kind of thing you do when you're a Democratic president who raked in millions of dollars from operatives of foreign governments, and when Republicans are about to take control of the House and use its subpoena power to investigate. The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home.

Starting point is 00:14:23 In the Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel wrote about the Justice Department's double standard. It's convenient that the White House was able to keep quiet for nearly 70 days after the revelation that Mr. Biden inappropriately retained classified information, Strassel wrote. The media reported almost immediately in 2022 that the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to examine Donald Trump's handling of classified documents and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened a probe. These unsourced stories contain details only department personnel would know, despite a strict prohibition on discussing or disclosing investigations. In the Biden case, officials managed to keep their mouths shut for months.

Starting point is 00:15:00 It's convenient that the Biden news didn't break prior to the midterm elections. In the Trump case, a torrent of leaks and the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago inspired Attorney General Merrick Garland to break the policy of confidentiality, she added. He publicly confirmed the investigation. The first Biden document was found November 2nd, and the Justice Department knew about it by November 4th, four days before voters went to the polls. This time, Mr. Garland scrupulously followed policy and kept silent, allowing Team Biden more than two months to perfect the tidy story of inadvertent handling and full cooperation it later rolled out. In Fox News, Greg Jarrett

Starting point is 00:15:36 said Biden may be in more legal trouble than Trump. In Biden's case, the increasing number of different locations where classified records were found is compelling circumstantial evidence that this was not simply a single instance where a record was inadvertently misplaced. Instead, there are three locations and counting. This suggests that their placement was both knowing and intentional, Jarrett said. The number of documents is not nearly as incriminating as the number of locations where they were kept without mandated safeguards. But intent is not the only legal standard. Under the law, lesser proof of gross negligence is enough to merit criminal charges. Here, Biden has already admitted such reckless or extremely careless actions by attributing the wayward documents to inadvertence. Indeed, the word is the literal dictionary

Starting point is 00:16:19 definition of carelessness. There is little question that Biden's mishandling of these national security materials was, at the very least, grossly negligent. Malign actors may well have gained access. The president's son, Hunter Biden, who is under criminal investigation for influence-peddling schemes involving foreign entities, had routine and ready access. The elder Biden refused to maintain visitor logs at his home where he has spent much of his presidency, so there's no telling who else was within close proximity, Jarrett said. The former president insists he declassified the records before he departed office. The law affords him unfettered discretion to do so. Whether it occurred has not been litigated or otherwise determined.

Starting point is 00:16:59 If the materials at his residence were no longer classified, then he has not run afoul of the aforementioned statutes. Biden, as vice president, did not have the same authority to declassify. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So in our second edition on the Mar-a-Lago search, I wrote that there's still a lot we don't know, and I do think it looks a lot worse for Trump today than it did five days ago. I still think the same thing could be said about Biden here. There is still a lot we don't know, but it still looks worse for Biden than it did two weeks ago. Biden's team has leaned into the claim that they self-reported the documents and therefore have displayed a tremendous amount of transparency, but that stance itself is a little disingenuous. Biden's lawyers reported the documents to the National Archives, not the Justice Department

Starting point is 00:17:59 or FBI, and they hoped that the matter would be resolved quietly, without the public ever knowing. And indeed, if not for the Inspector General of the National Archives, whose office notified the FBI and they hoped that the matter would be resolved quietly, without the public ever knowing. And indeed, if not for the Inspector General of the National Archives, whose office notified the Justice Department, it's possible they may have gotten their wish. Comparing the two cases is a fair exercise. In the legal sense, I'd still much rather be Biden than Trump. Trump is relying on the claim that he was the president when he possessed classified documents, giving him the full authority to declassify them, and that he used his declassification authority properly. The first part of that claim is true. The second part, even as Fox News' Greg Jarrett put it, needs to be litigated. Being president doesn't mean you can just wave a declassification wand

Starting point is 00:18:39 over any classified material you want and get to lock it in a shed in your home in Florida. any classified material you want and get to lock it in a shed in your home in Florida. That is not how this works. For Trump, there are three problems. He has an antagonistic relationship with the FBI and Justice Department, claiming they are personally persecuting him. Now that combativeness is an issue. Two, he fought both tooth and nail to keep the documents, misled investigators, and potentially obstructed the investigation itself by allegedly moving and concealing the documents. And third, and finally, at least some of the documents in his possession seemed extremely sensitive. There's no way to avoid that looking worse and provoking a stronger legal response based on what we know. Biden's issues are different.

Starting point is 00:19:21 First, we don't know what exactly he had in his possession, which probably reflects fewer people leaking to the press to damage him. When we find out, it could get worse or better for him. Either way, though, the uncertainty is unnerving. Second, the documents were in more than one location and none of them were remotely secure. Third, he had less classified authority and didn't have the standing that would have allowed him to claim that he declassified the documents found in his possession. Some in the press have lamely offered up a 2009 executive order from former President Obama that tried to confer declassification power to Biden. It's true that the order was signed, but it's also true that it may not have been legal. But mostly, it's just irrelevant. Biden is not claiming he declassified any documents

Starting point is 00:20:05 that he took with him and stored in his home or office. I've always been skeptical of an indictment of Trump over the mishandling of classified documents or obstructing an investigation into that mishandling. Trump's greatest legal troubles lie elsewhere. I'm doubly skeptical of Biden ever facing any legal consequences, which would only come after he left office anyway, thanks to long-standing Justice Department precedent not to indict a sitting president. The reality is that the most impactful parts of this story are going to be fought on political grounds, not legal ones. And in that regard, this just keeps getting worse for Biden. Yes, the public will be able to distinguish some details of intent or obstruction, cooperation,

Starting point is 00:20:43 or conflict. At the end of the day, a lot of Americans are going to view these two cases as a wash. A former president claiming he declassified hundreds of classified documents in his possession, who also says he is the victim of a witch hunt. A former vice president saying he didn't know a small number of classified documents were in his possession, who also says he is cooperating fully. Perhaps Henry Olson had it right when he said the special counsel should just make all the details public and let the public decide. I doubt it'd move the needle much in any direction, but at this point,

Starting point is 00:21:12 it might be the most even-handed way to move forward. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. Today's question is from John in Illinois. John said, is the fentanyl crisis as bad as we are led to believe by some outlets? And if so, why don't politicians seem eager to address it? we can see quite clearly that overdoses are continuing to rise in the United States, and we can also see fentanyl's role. There is a graph from the National Institute on Drug Abuse that I shared in today's newsletter where you can see a massive spike in synthetic opioid and fentanyl deaths starting in about 2014. More recent data suggests about 1,300 Americans are dying from synthetic opioid overdoses every week on average. As for politicians being eager to address it, honestly, I think they are. It's just that the

Starting point is 00:22:10 politics of a resolution, like many other issues, are very complicated. For starters, fentanyl is often transported through the border with Mexico, meaning one way to stop it would be enhancing security at ports of entry. That, of course, launches the debate over solutions into the very divisive immigration realm. Other proposals, like Representative Dan Newhouse's push to make fentanyl a Schedule 1 drug, which allows stricter prosecution, have succeeded, but his push to give the Drug Enforcement Agency more money has failed. President Biden, meanwhile, has released fact sheets about how his administration is investing in fighting addiction, supplying overdose-reversing medication, and giving more funding to local law enforcement to address the opioid crisis.

Starting point is 00:22:49 In sum, I think there are a lot of politicians who are focused on this. I just think, as usual, they disagree on how best to go about it. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to today's Under the Radar story. Black workers, young workers, and people on the bottom of the income scale saw the largest pay increases in the last year, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. During the tight labor market, businesses were increasingly handing out raises and more robust employment packages, leading median weekly earnings for all workers to rise 7.4% year over year by the end of 2022. That just outpaced the consumer inflation rate of 7.1%

Starting point is 00:23:32 in the fourth quarter from one year earlier. But the median raise for Black Americans employed full-time was 11.3%. For 16 to 24-year-olds, it was 10%. For the bottom 10th of wage earners, it was also 10%. Wall Street Journal has a story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. Next up is our numbers section. The percentage of Americans who think Biden acted inappropriately in the way he handled classified documents was 60%, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. The percentage of Americans who think Biden did not act inappropriately was 22%. The percentage of Americans who say they are following news about the discovery of these documents either very closely or somewhat closely is 67%. The percentage of Americans

Starting point is 00:24:19 who think Biden should face criminal charges is 37%. The percentage of Americans who think Biden should not face criminal charges was 46%. And finally, President Biden's approval rating, according to the latest average of polls from FiveThirtyEight, is 42.1%. All right, that is it for our numbers section. Last but not least today, our have a nice day story. Children with chronic health conditions at Perth Children's Hospital in Australia are getting a new kind of treatment, surf, sun, and fresh air. The program has been put in place permanently after a pilot program for kids with cystic fibrosis found surfing had a positive impact on outcomes for patients.

Starting point is 00:25:00 For some kids, the surf lessons act as physical therapy. For others, it is a way to improve their mental health. It also gives kids a new community who are often less likely to participate in team sports or physical activity because of their conditions. ABC Australia has the story and there is a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work please go to reetangle.com and consider becoming a member if you are not yet a member you probably missed our newsletter on friday which was all about conspiracy theories we got

Starting point is 00:25:36 a ton of interesting feedback positive and negative about it highly recommend going to our website checking it out subscribing to reeb You can also just share this podcast with friends. We'll be right back here. Same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul.

Starting point is 00:26:00 Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Vekova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.littletangle.com. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

Tangle - More Biden classified documents.

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