When classified documents turned up in President Joe Biden's former office, his Delaware home and the garage housing his Corvette, the political impact was predictable. Republicans gleefully accused Biden of the same offense that prompted the FBI to raid former President Donald Trump's Florida estate last August.
The newly minted Republican chairmen of two House committees announced investigations of Biden — but not of Trump or former Vice President Mike Pence, who confessed that he too had found classified documents at home. Democrats lamented that Biden and his staff had squandered the moral high ground.
The differences between the cases are significant. Trump took hundreds of classified documents home; Biden a far smaller number, assuming no more turn up. Trump resisted returning documents to the government; Biden's lawyers turned them in promptly. Trump appears to have held on to documents on purpose; Biden's aides say his mistakes were inadvertent.
