The FBI’s former assistant director is blasting the bureau for its “significant difference” in how the agency handled the cases involving President Biden and former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified materials.
The first batch of classified documents in Biden’s possession were found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, just before the 2022 midterm elections, and were not disclosed until Monday. Biden’s garage at his Wilmington home was searched on December 20 and the rest of the house was searched, according to Biden’s lawyers, this week, when additional documents were discovered.
While the Trump and Biden cases have key differences, Chris Swecker, who served 24 years in the FBI as a special agent and retired from the bureau as assistant director of the criminal investigation division, told Fox News Digital Saturday that the Department of Justice is handling things. with Biden in a “genteel” way.
Swecker, referring to the treatment Trump received during the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last year, said there is “a big difference in the treatment of equal facts when it comes to the Bidens.”
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Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on as President Biden speaks during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 13, 2022.
(Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“You know, it’s kid gloves, he’s going about it in a very nice, very gentlemanly way,” Swecker said, noting that the Justice Department is apparently letting Biden allies decide what is viewed and what is not, as well. as what is removed from the properties and what is not.
“I think this is yet another example of the noble way that the left and the right are being handled,” Swecker said.
Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber disclosed in a statement Saturday that an additional five pages of documents with classified markings were found at Biden’s Delaware home Thursday evening, making six classified documents recovered from the home — in addition to the documents found in the garage.
Sauber explained that when Biden’s personal attorneys identified one classified document at Biden’s home on Wednesday, they stopped searching for additional documents because they didn’t have the security clearances necessary to see those materials — underscoring the seriousness of the issue and what the reason why the DOJ doesn’t seem to have been suspicious. to assist in the search of Biden’s residences or offices.
Under pressure from Republicans, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel Thursday to investigate the classified materials, which Biden claims were “inadvertently wasted.” Garland tapped Robert Hur, a former United States attorney, to handle the investigation.
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President Joe Biden will be shown in the Oval Office of the White House on January 13, 2023.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Democrats praised Biden’s cooperation with the DOJ as authorities investigate the classified documents. Sauber emphasized in his statement that Biden “takes classified information and materials seriously” and said the president’s lawyers will “continue to cooperate” with the special counsel’s investigation.
“We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly when this mistake was discovered,” Sauber said.
“Based on what we know now, it is unlikely that Biden will ever face charges, but Trump is at high risk because of his obstructive behavior and other factors that are not in Biden’s case,” wrote Norm Eisen, an ethics lawyer and counsel for House Democrats. in an opinion column for CNN. “The cases share special counsel and classified documents – but little else.”
Eisen argued, Trump resisted turning over the materials after months of discussions and subpoenas and insisted he had a right to keep them, while Biden said he didn’t know the documents were classified — the first series at least – in his possession, and his. lawyers voluntarily turned them over to the DOJ.
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When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, before informing the public that he had also leaked classified materials as vice president, President Biden questioned how Trump could be so “irresponsible” .
Asked why the FBI is leaving the search of Biden’s Delaware residence for additional classified material to White House aides, Swecker said there should already be an “open investigation” and reminds him how the FBI dealt with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was able to avoid charges for using a private email server during her tenure.
“This is a continuation of that kid glove, soft touch they have with things on the left side of the political aisle,” he said. “On the right, they come in with swat teams and search warrants and they come hard. It shouldn’t be like that.”
“I think it’s bad for the FBI to use search warrants to do that sorta thing,” he said. “They should subpoena and they should do this in a way that is not short of a full raid. But that’s not what they did with Trump – they just raided his Mar-a-Lago residence… If it’s good for Trump, it should be good for Biden too. The way this identical set of circumstances was handled is different.”
When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, before informing the public that he had also leaked classified materials as vice president, President Biden questioned how Trump could be so “irresponsible” .
(Getty Images, photo illustration)
Swecker also said he believes the documents found at Mar-a-Lago were in a much safer place than those found at Biden’s Delaware home, which was his residence for the period between his role as vice president and as president.
“I think they were safer at Mar-a-Lago, I mean it took an FBI swat team to get in there,” he said. “You can’t go in the gate. I’m sure there was a log because it was still under Secret Service protection. [They] locked inside a closet, the hotel has got cameras and security, so it is buttoned down quite doggone tight. They made sure it was locked up at the request of the archives and DOJ.”
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“Now a garage door, you can go out to any of these technology places and you can program any garage door opener to open practically any garage door,” Swecker said. “[Biden] It was not under Secret Service protection at the time, as I understand it, and the house was empty for much of that time. That house was inherently insecure. It’s a lot less secure than Mar-a-Lago.”
Fox News Digital has contacted the White House.
