Biden: We're returning these classified documents that were found in the office, as required by law.
Trump: Those classified documents that were found in my possession are MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!
- - -
In fact, I don't think there has ever been a likelihood of Trump being charged merely for possession of those documents, the likely charges would relate to obstruction, not possession per se.
The laws in this area permit considerable flexibility regarding prosecution decisions associated with intent and knowledge. That is, it is recognized that such documents can accidentally be gathered up with other unrelated documents, and this is considered in decisions of intent and whether or not charging is appropriate.
This is why Trump's exposure is different. After multiple assertions that all related documents had been returned, he asserted that he didn't even *need* to return even more of them, that he now owned them, etc. All demonstrably false since as a former president his "need to know" qualifications for those documents no longer exist. So his exposure is mainly for obstruction, not possession.
I'm confused why the media narrative I've seen was "he's kept those documents" and not "he refuses to return those documents and any other he might still have".
@robryk Give it time. More and more articles like that are already appearing. Not that it will matter to the fascists.
@lauren Sure, but why do the other thing when the strong first broke? This just sets up the scene for correct claims that the original accusation is not strong, contrary to previous claims of media, so allows people to (a) discredit the media (because they did something that's very similar to writing the conclusion first) and (b) discredit the stronger accusations.
@robryk Because reporting past the headline takes time. Really.
@lauren Sorry, parsing difficulty. Do you mean that propagating a story that doesn't fit into a headline takes time? If not, please verbosify.
@robryk The headline is "classified documents found and returned to national archives". Building the stories that include retrospective comparisons to other situations (like Trump's) takes longer, though I did hear some discussion of these differences on CNN within minutes of the original headlines on CNN.
You seem to be addressing the differences in factual situations. I do agree with them and don't have quibbles with them at all.
I just remember the story that the newspapers I've seen gave after the raid was that Trump had classified documents, which was a terrible thing. If the baseline of "former president accidentally has classified documents" is not close to zero, it's not very advisable to be hanging the story off this part of the whole thing, as opposed to the refusal to return them/cooperate in locating more of them/etc, which IIRC were treated as "additional" parts.
The only way (other than incompetence) that I can think of that can incentivize media to pick such an (IMO wrong) way to phrase the story is a rush to get it out. Do you see others? (Or maybe disagree on the shape of the story at that time, or disagree on this being a bad choice for the media?)
@robryk I think you're expecting too much too fast. When the raid took place, the reasons for the raid -- the history to that point -- were also immediately reported in the Trump case.
@robryk Well, the circumstances were different. The first public knowledge of this was the raid, and by that time there was already a history relating to multiple attempts to get back documents and increasing concerns of obstruction.
In Biden's case, the public news of the documents being found came directly without all that intervening history.