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I wonder why a sweep for classified documents isn’t a standard part of leaving high level office. Seems like an opportunity to tighten up if nothing else.
(Also, the only time anyone should announce where the 5th fleet is steaming to is when we're lying to the enemy in order to deceive them. ALL true operational details should be closely held.)
@@clocksurfer I was under the impression you're not supposed to lie about the information either, unless given proper authorization. It's certainly the case for when you're captured, though that's more about trying get people to not dig themselves into a hole that could piss off the captors. You just don't answer when asked.
@Ms. A. Laenius Agreed. I'm referring specifically to official public statements. Officials should only announce OpSec sensitive information to the press/public when it's intentionally misleading the enemy as part of sanctioned foreign policy. "Art of War" type stuff...
Part of the problem with Trump is his refusal to work with the transition and refusal to leave the White House until the very last minute, which I'm sure added unnecessary time pressure to any attempt to filter what was being packed by his minions...
Better solution, ban them all from government work forever, bring in a new batch. Don't bother sorting out who did or didn't jeopardize national security, just go full clean slate.
Everyone gets the training annually by legal requirement. In most agencies (if not all) they will literally suspend your credentials if you don't do it in time.
Not really. 2 of 3 people found some they immediately recognized were not in the correct place, secured them & contacted appropriate agencies. Probably from hearing about the 3rd who had been moving around to avoid detection.
A president who keeps his own, declassified documents is following the rules. A vice president who is leaving classified docs in an unsecured garage on some boxes, is a criminal.
Yeah, I'm gonna guess no one has the time or energy for that. Especially since many of them are rich and have multiple properties to search.... and given what counts as classified documents.... I can almost guarantee 98% of them have something.
I think what the two people above me are missing is that this would be an “audit” not a criminal investigation. It can help lead to determining how to go forward when dealing with these lapses in security.
This is actually a really good suggestion. I was a librarian for 20+ years, and now I am in charge of privacy compliance for my employer. I also serve on the committee that deals with data security and classification issues and policies. We librarians have the applicable skills. (I should add that I am not an American citizen, and so I could never be employed by the US Government as I cannot get a security clearance.)
@@williamharris8367 If you became a naturalized citizen, you could still get a security clearance as long as you could pass a background check. Not trying to suggest anything, just wanted to point out in case someone else was confused like I was at first.
The problem isn't that there aren't staff to perform these tasks, but that they don't have the authority to overrule the President or Vice President on procedural stuff like document handling. Can you imagine anyone telling Trump 'no' about anything?
fun fact: while watching this, i expressed my frustration to my mother about these two taking things home when they shouldn't. my mother, who worked for the irs once upon a time, said it's actually way more common than i'd think, and proceeded to tell me a story of one agent who, after being retired for three years, discovered boxes of classified documents he had taken home for work. he had to hire one of those professional shredding trucks, once he reported himself to his old supervisors....
@@GoldenSunAlex exactly, I'm sure every President or Vice President has done it at least once if not more, it's easier to work on something if you have something with you, not saying that it's right or anything but I don't recall The Archives ever saying anything about missing documents until the last President did it, I have no issues with Presidents keeping such docs while they are in that office even though I'm not a fan of Don to begin with. That being said, how he handled the situation was wrong, archives kept saying they were still missing some and instead of giving them up, the FBI had to raid him via a search warrant. Say what people want regarding Biden and Pence but when their docs were found, they immediately had it reported and surrendered them and if the FBI requested a search of their residence then they granted it.
Its stupid to prosecute anyone for this. They had it at one point for a legitimate reason for having it and ultimately its ridiculous that anyone is surprised that our legislators and presidents have classified documents. I don't care which president it is. I highly suspect that this has happened to every president in the history of the US. I mean it has never been an issue.
Yeah, I was a technician for an infantry battalion, and I actually found some classified cryptography notes in my backpack from a deployment nearly a decade ago. I can see how these things would get mixed up after years of service--
@LockGrinder just because they live there as a President doesn't mean that they live there 24/7, there are times where they want to go back to their actual home.
Its wild that these high politicians have nothing happening to them IMMEDIATELY. I live in an area where a solid portion of jobs require clearance and stuff…I have talked to people who have either ACCIDENTALLY taken a sheet of paper home or just been accused…and they got the entire HR book thrown at them with the threat of having the LEGAL book thrown at them INSTANTLY.
The politicians are the ones in charge over whether or not they get in trouble, silly. Remember; the justice system is carefully designed to protect them and harm us. Why would they harm themselves?
Yeah. That's what irritates me too - federal crimes should absolutely be something that polluticians of any level and persuasion should be responsible for. As it is, they literally can get away with murder.
We need more booths and oswalds in the world today. We can't count on the legal system to do it's job against these people, maybe a physics lesson is required.
During WW2 a random Canadian soldier cleaning an office after the Quebec Conference found a folder that he figured had been left behind and took it home as a souvenir. When he got home, he opened the file and... found D-Day landing plans. He handed the folder back on Monday, was visited by a half dozen very annoyed and angry policing agencies, somehow managed to not go to prison, got a medal for keeping quiet, and took the secret of which allied leader accidentally left invasion plans in his office to the grave.
To be fair, to prosecutor the guy would have ben an open announcement that such plans existed. And the efforts to keep such plans a secret (to the point they obtained a corpse of a homeless person, cleaned/dressed the person up as an officer, locked a briefcase with fake documents on to the corpse's wrist, and dropped the corpse in the Mediterranean for the Spaniards to find and provide access to the Nazis before returning the corpse to the British), it was probably easier to scare the guy within an inch of his life to keep quiet. A trial would have been begging for attention in the media.
I love the way Devin almost shouted that sponsor segue "HOMES ARE NOT FOR STORING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, THEY ARE FOR MAKING DELICIOUS HOME-COOKED MEALS!"
That resulted in me actually watching the ad, which I rarely do. I found it funny he was wearing a suite when cooking lol. I imagine if he's selling sponsored pillows in the future it will be him sleeping in the bed in a suite.
This is such a weird problem 🤔 like do we need to lend out classified documents like library books and start harassing them after 2 weeks or they can’t take anymore out? 📚
It's only weird cuz it's a problem at all like this frankly shouldn't be we should already have a system in place to prevent this stuff and the fact that there isn't or at least seems to be little over sight over important documents is extremely sus
Hahahahaha, ahhh what if I told you we mostly keep them electronically, and they aren’t that closely tracked unless they’re super crazy classified We have millions of classified and billions of sensitive documents. We can’t track who’s printing them!
I love this channel. I especially like that LE will hand over the reins to a specialist when the topic calls for it. I used to work in the IT department of a regional law firm, and this is exactly how things operated internally. Sometimes I would even be asked to meet with attorneys if a case had a substantial technical aspect. A true discoverer will always seek out new knowledge rather than pretend to already know everything.
I believe there is, but it's simply too much to keep track of. I'd assume numerous classified and sensitive documents go to the president and vice president every single day, as well as the countless documents and copies of documents for staff. There may be an electronic system, but that is immediately more vulnerable to malice than an analog record.
@@MediumChungus223 yes but if a computer is managing it all then you can set instances such as the status of a person or if a person has documents for X amount of time, they need to be rechecked out. If that simple system was in place then it would have detected that Biden and Trump still had documents checked out but their status changed to regular citizen.
@@wolfarix no it’s literally not, because someone still has to enforce those documents getting back/ there’s 1.3 million people with access, often getting many docs at a time, with 3 docs every second being ADDED to the classification folder. That’s soooooo much
Plus, as noted in the video, if you take notes while reading a classified document, your notes are classified too. Not only do these people handle a lot of classified documents, they generate them. And sometimes they generate them without anyone else knowing that they have done so. On the flip side, ... I know of a case where a physics professor worked for one semester at another university. Some of the documents he handled were classified by the Department of Energy, and the filing cabinet he stored them in was clearly marked with a warning that some of it's contents were classified. Those markings were still on that filing cabinet years afterwards, long after all classified material had been removed and the cabinet had been repurposed by the next person to use that office. What I am saying is that while in theory nothing should be marked as classified that actually isn't, practice doesn't always match. And there's a whole spectrum of classifications and classified material. Some classified material isn't very important and/or isn't particularly secret. And we don't know what a lot of these documents were, beyond them being classified material (or at least marked as such). (Though some we do know about, at least vaguely. I believe Trump's documents have been said to include information on the nuclear capabilities of other nations and the names of US intelligence sources, and both of those are pretty big deals.)
@@avacadomangobanana2588 That could be answered by creating a special task force and the amount of added documents is doable. I mean look at the rate UA-cam uploads are.
This video answers better than any other media I've consumed about why all these documents keep getting found and then IMMEDIATELY turned over or announced. At first, I'm like, "wouldn't an aide or lawyer want to wait and protect their boss/client?" But hell no. If I could catch a felony if it's ever discovered I saw an NDI and didn't act immediately, there's no way I would risk my neck even if I thought my boss/client had just 'made a mistake.'
Turning it over also protects their client legally. The client can easily claim honest/negligent mistake if you hand it over immediately. If you hold it, the legal protection of "oops" disappears. It just hurts them from a reputation stand point. Which, frankly, is a good thing. We'd rather have people take the reputational slap on the wrist and get classified documents back into protected areas and perform an assessment of the damage incurred than feel incentivized to hide their misdeeds so we have no idea that information got out, be continually exposed to it being outside of protection, and have no knowledge of what happened to it or who had access so that appropriate remediation could be taken.
@@forgottenfamily it does not help when it’s secret, rumored to have nuclear secrets, and is just the empty folder when they kick in your door after the 50th refusal that you even have it.
@@tekkersmo3816 Does it? Considering the Nuclear Secrets thing was only mentioned in the Media and never by the FBI or DOJ. It wasn't like Trump straight up refused. They were going back and forth and the FBI had been at his place months earlier and had no issues. The reason for the delay with the documents was a disagreement over classification and personal record. All the jazz and flamboyant nonsense from media heads turned out to be nothing. Instead of nuclear secrets it was his letters back and forth with Kim Jong Un. Stuff that legitimately is his own personal record considering the fact that nobody disputed Bill Clintons recorded calls from his time in office as "personal". If Trump did something as bad as you all believe, he'd be in jail as we speak. The military have that power and the Democrat DOJ is keen to help if they can. If this was a proper threat to national security there wouldn't be this whole dog and pony show. You'd see results. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was negligent with her unsecured server with classified documents on it according to Comey. She had dozens of Classified documents on her server, some Top Secret. There was over 6 people without a clearance with access to that server on a daily basis from her assistant Huma, to Anthony Weiner and their tech workers like Pagliano. This was NOT a problem for ANY Democrat and the DOJ at the time even though this was years after her time in office. She was not apologetic about it and you guys pretend like this isn't a precedent setting event. This is exactly why they can't and wont charge Trump. They would have to charge her and Biden.
There is clearly a common thread however, refusing to return the documents to the point where the government has to forcibly retrieve them takes this to a whole other level.
Trump did return documents, just not all. Same as Joe. Main difference i see (next to the legal gray zone): Trump was publicly raided with high manpower for documents stored in a secure location. Biden was first kept silent then lowkey searched for documents, that were laying all over the place.
How about covering up that you broke the law before an election? Do you not think the public had a right to know about this discover on Nov 2nd , before the midterms?
Seriously, it doesn't matter that it waz Trump that did it, anyone who reacts the way that he did should be punished appropriately regardless of who they are.
We found top secret docs in my great grandparents house after grandma died (both worked for Army). We just immediately called law enforcement and asked what to do, and we followed the directions they gave us. But one was a clerk and one was a juniorish officer, and if people with that level of access have stuff lying around we have a BIG problem
the reality is that most classified documents... would be indistinguishable from normal documents if they weren't marked... it's WHY they're marked so carefully. But also it means the info is often... boring. Like access logs for a secure facility. Who cares what time various people came in? obviously there ARE nefarious uses, and good reasons to safeguard the data. But your average person could read the data, and not see it as anything of any value. A lot of things get classified for.... routine reasons. X facility is secured, thus all access logs are classified, etc.... Knowing potential harm to the US requires knowing WHAT the documents are... and I suspect Biden doesn't care about things as mundane as access logs.
You really need to google what classified in secret actually means to the government. I had a security clearance because I needed to be able to read 20 year old schematics for a military helicopter. So a private can have a security clearance. However, I was not permitted to take any of them home.
I worked for a USG contractor once. They had very regular and very _thorough_ security inspections (and we only dealt in the lowest level of Classified materials). I find it hard to believe anyone is doing any kind of security inspections for elected officials or their staff--or else this stuff would've been caught within a few weeks at most.
It's really weird and kind of disturbing that a typical public library apparently has a better idea of where their books are than the federal government. Has it occurred to no one to give an official leaving office a checklist of "this is all the stuff you still owe us, make sure we get it before you move out?"
The sheer volume of documents that probably pass through the offices of the President or VP would likely make it impossible to inspect or track effectively. Not saying impossible, but it's almost certainly a lot harder than a low-level mook like us.
I think the total volume of paper is probably a large factor here. Like, how many million documents went through Biden / Trump/ whomever and their staff while they are VP or higher. What % were classified (and what % needlessly). What is the % of human error on those. Some errors like this are almost inevitable at that scale. Having no mistakes is pretty much an impossible goal, it's how you deal with them that really matters. Perhaps in future presidents will hire a "divestment" team or something to review all their documents and *reduce* this kind of mistake. I'll bet you a coke even then some would slip through to be discovered later. I think (with a little experience) there's also a difference between working on something classified, and living a 24/7 life surrounded by it while also in the public eye and needing to undertake a multitude of duties outside that classified role. Every transition is a point errors can happen.
It almost seems like when people leave office, or maybe even more frequently for longer appointments, there should just be a regular audit process that goes through and does a search to clear out/collect classified documents. They'd have to come up with something like a fine so people don't just get lax about it, but it seems to be a common enough issue to maybe build in a protocol to deal with this more systemically
true but also sadly and I hate to come to his defense, they often deal with so many documents on a daily basis that stuff getting misplaced seems like it happens a lot more than we realize, so yes there should 100% be an audit process or something to at least remind people to check. Because things can easily leave someone's mind when they are doing many things at once.
You know, when I was a teenager working at a clothing store, we had to check each other's bags before we could walk out of the store, every time we left... Kind of embarrassing Suzy Shier had stricter safeguards in place than the whitehouse
Except you didn't work there 24/7 and were expected to take hundred of items of clothing with you back home to wear of an evening with just you and your 24 man secret service team to keep them safe over the course of 12 years or so. But only some of those clothes had to come back. Now you've forgotten to return 12 out of hundreds or thousands of them. Does that make it more relatable to you?
because we're minimum wage workers. if we steal something worth $2 the country will spend $1000 making sure we can never earn another $2... trapping a person in a cycle of stealing. *only mildly joking* I'm sure you saw how many shoplifters they caught. And how many karens went unchallenged.
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that the security safeguards for low level employees with access to classified documents is stricter than the safeguards for, say managers. This is more like the people from corporate taking stuff home than a teenager.
As someone who used to handle classified documents up to TS/SCI I am still flabbergasted at how casual our leaders are about securing NDI according to regulations. If any of us common folk did that we'd be in jail or separated with a quickness. And the only reason I'm aware of for TS NDI to be at someone's home is supposedly that captains of nuclear missile subs have a special system at home that allows them to recieve TS messages dealing with ship's movement - so I got no freakin idea what those files were doing anywhere outside an approved storage location.
Rules for thee and not for me. They know they will be able to just get away with maybe a slap on the wrist if anything, so they don’t need to be as careful. When I was enlisted and working with classified documents and ammunition, I was so paranoid I was going to make an honest mistake and go to prison.
I can't help but feel like they're not in the mindset of "leave work at work" and just bring it home like anything else. . Now we know one way spies are going to consider getting docs, not that it's likely to be successful. 13 hours for a couple folders doesn't seem that lucrative, especially when they can't know what's inside.
Likely they don't think about it because they are just handed things, and have huge secretarial staffs and don't have intelligence agency backgrounds. They really should be going after the analysts who signed out the documents and didn't retrieve them.
Not exactly the same potential impact, but I've seen the "secret formula" for a major brewing company. It's just a bunch of numbers (concentrations, temperatures, etc.) in a spreadsheet.
Question. I remember Trump making a law that says officials who mishandle classified documents can never run for president. Does this mean Biden and Trump won't be on the docket in 2024? Because that would be amazing.
Each state controls (through legislation) who is on their ballot. It’s unlikely that any federal law would be able to bar states from putting someone on the ballot.
That never happened lol, he might have blathered on about it in one of his rallies but that isn't law, nor do I think it was ever even proposed in a bill. Electoral requirements are codified by the Constitution, so any changes can only happen through amendments (see the 22nd, which mandated 2 term limits)
We have terrible document control. Classified docs should be handled like library books. Check them out and, if you don’t return them, somebody comes looking for them…
With current technology it can be even simpler than that. Zero reason for any of these documents to be printed. Any data that needs to be taken somewhere for review should be stored on a biometrically encrypted key that automatically erases the encryption hash after 30-days rendering the key and the data on it useless. The problem is we hire people that are 70+ years old to office that can't even figure out how to set a clock on a car radio.
It might be something that’s attainable. But people need to use these documents on a daily basis. Trying to create a very strict system for every document mean some people can’t really do their jobs anymore or at least not efficiently.
You know... it seems to me they could have a system where if someone has classified documents, they have to present a classified documents card, and then someone stamps the documents with a time period out, and they have to return the documents to the place they got the documents FROM, or they suffer penalties. I'm scratching my head, wondering if we have any sort of system like that already set up. hmmmmm.
That's called Line of Custody, and every facility with security either private or otherwise tends to have a checklist/list of people who scanned their access card into areas and forms for who has possession of things known as a 'handreceipt.' With classified material you also need special training to be a carrier and move those documents from one facility to another. This was a case of line of custody was broken and idiocy because once classified material is taken you better damn well always have that shit in your sight or hand until you transport it to the other location its authorized to be in.
@@Mortenthiar okay....seems to have some cracks in the system though if so many people have taken home documents, and in Biden's case, he had some for decades.
This is like listening to Trump Admin era Devin, when events were changing so quickly that we could almost view Devin's stress-induced aneurism forming in real time
It’s not so much the fact that sometimes mistakes are made, it’s how people respond and react to being caught that matters more. You can say “ooops, I will cooperate completely and return everything immediately” or you can lie, lie, lie, give a middle finger, and then lie some more.
That’s so cool you mentioned atomic clocks! My grandpa used to design atomic time standards and precision quartz oscillators, and the field of precision timing is so underrated. The physics are fascinating as are the mechanisms.
As a programmer, I hate your grandpa… (just kidding. dealing with time standards is hard in software because of the intrinsic problems with timekeeping, not necessarily because the people who made these standards didn't know what they are doing)
As more and more came out that there were documents everywhere, and the Archives literally asked "Hey everyone who's a former president or VP, can you double check your stuff?" - all I had in my head at that point was the Benny Hill Yackity Sax song. Like... how does this happen? If my library book is two seconds late I'm getting a ruder phone call than "please"
Now I want a political comedy broadway style musical to come out of this, complete with the disgruntled NARA assistant going "Is there anyone here who DOESN'T have top secret documents locked in a filing cabinet somewhere?!?" Cut to all the politicians just nervously shuffling their feet and looking down.
It really does make you wonder if it isn't the Archives fault. Can't wait to see how many former officials have to turn in folders they recently found. I feel the Carter joke is going to come true.
It's very clear that we need to completely overhaul the way that classified documents are handled. Seems everyone who has access takes them home. We need to have like some sort of library system, so that we know who has what at any given time.
the problem isn't one of lack of procedures or training (although the latter may help). The problem is that those procedures interfere with the work of 'important' people who don't want to wait for someone to sign the proper request forms in order to handle the classified documents. Impatient people also tend to be really creative at finding loop holes that allow them to skip all that bother. And when personell is easily replaced there's no one willing to risk their job by telling their boss that he needs to follow a procedure that literally does nothing except slow down his work. also : how does one classify those records ?
I actually had some, but just like partial paitent reports that I never actually shredded not like government secrets Well and the uranium and military intelegence remote access to private government networks and admin credentials.... now the fun part is figuring out if I'm kidding or not (hint my dad's a nuclear engineer)
Ex Navy Radioman here (1980-84 BMU2). I held a Secret clearance and as we were taught just because I had that clearance I had "a need to know." Also we had to sign out documents and where to read/study them in secured areas. This crap thats going on would surely get me a Courts Marshall and thrown in the brig if I done stuff like this.
yup but you were just an employee whereas the politicians are the bosses so like most things in life the rules don't apply to the boss. that's our country.
The fun thing about this stuff with classified documents, it's that they are classified. Like, they might contain completely unimportant/irrelevant/unusuable information in them, but they have the stamp, so it seems like you have to judge the whole process disregarding the contents. Like, imagine having some grandma's secret cake recipe, but with an official classified stamp on it, and having to go through all these searches. That could be a hilarious comedy movie, lol
The thing is sometimes it's classified because of how they got it. Like imagine if grandma was a dictator and only told the secret cake recipe to three people. If it gets out she has three good guesses on whose a Spy'.
My grandmother used to work for the government. Growing up I was stressed to understand how important it is that you make sure you understand the classification level of any documents you take from your place of work. Maybe it's a government job. Maybe it's corporate. Either way, you don't want to get caught taking home something that your employer deems critically important because that is how you get slammed for espionage, whether seditious or industrial. In either case, you basically risk ruining any future gainful employment no matter what your work history and you risk ruining whatever legacy you may have otherwise built for yourself
@@zyeborm Even if that is the case, Biden was VP at the time. Pence was VP at the time. Trump was no longer president at the time. So your argument is a bit of a moot point, is it not? Also, my comment had nothing to do with the specific situations, but rather as a general rule.
Me, having just done my annual security training where they instill the fear of God on us with the punishments for mishandling classified info: "Huh..."
Agent trying to find classified information: That's impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete? Ex-officials: "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!" We're on our way to the establishment of Sith Holocrons
I'm a special education teacher. In response to this, and now Pence, I took a plain filing folder and a wrote in chunky permanent marker "CLASSIFIED" on it. I've taken to leaving it in various places around my classroom. It's filled with random junk like the recipe for salt dough, a few recipes we have made in class, a few drawings my students have made, etc.
At this point I think someone should search Monticello to see whether Jefferson left any classified documents there. Seriously, the systems for handling classified documents should be reviewed. I have a friend who's a retired navy captain who says that in that service, classified docs are tracked when they are removed from secure storage. They do weekly checks of docs that have been checked out to see whether they're where they're supposed to be, and to see whether they should be returned to storage. It seems we do a better job of tracking library books than of tracking classified documents.
Should Biden be investigated to see if he handed any of these documents off to Lichtenstein or wherever? Yes. Is there a difference between "hey, I found these, do you want them back" and "I don't have any documents, and even if I did they're my personal property, and even if they aren't what are you gonna do about it"? Also yes. Is it concerning that for about five years the government not only didn't know where the documents were, but also didn't realize they'd lost the things? VERY YES!
Wasn't there a story of hunter using some of those documents in his correspondence with Ukraine. Either way this is insane they should check everyone who was ever in office, and take it all. They should follow up after leaving to make sure no one has shit. Solved.
I just want to comment on the fantastic shots of you cooking and dicing vegetables in a full suit and tie, but with an apron. LOL... love your stuff. Thanks for doing what you do! :)
Honestly, it almost sounds to me like there's a relaxed culture in high government where not enough weight is given to proper storage and handling of important secret documents. Maybe this is just a problem of an unprofessional working environment when it comes to stuff like this.
Could've summarized it more succinctly by saying "there's a relaxed culture in high government where not enough weight is given to properly handling the job".
Also doesn't help when the majority of people in high positions of government are between 50 and 80 years old. So many of them aren't even internet literate either.
Not to mention Pence's estate also found classified documents. I think at this poi t there is enough of an issue that it warrants a sort of Q&A team to ensure classified documents are nit being intentionally or unintentionally held by outgoing administration staff.
ANY politician needs to be held to at least as high a standard as the people they govern. If any of US were found with Top Secret documents we would be charged and convicted in Federal Court. The same should apply to our sitting and former Presidents.
The reason people seek positions of authority is specifically for the privilege of being held to a lower standard. And, considering those with authority are the ones who determines which standards exist, and who they apply to... it's unlikely for that to ever change.
I really appreciate this video. I think one conclusion is that high level officials aren't as careful as they should be when it comes to classified documents. I can very much see a situation for presidents where they wish to avoid the inconvenience of only going over the documents at work and they want to be able to go over them from home.
What's TRULY HEARTBREAKING is that, NOT A SINGLE major news corporation has reported on this subject as clearly, and throughouly as this channel. Or news media is failing us...
@@eli-bt4he um, no. He waited, as he always does, to have enough information to do the video with depth and quality. the mar-a-lago had been going on for months before the actual raid.
@@eli-bt4he um, what are you smoking? It must be very powerful stuff. I mean this video broke it all down in great detail. It's clear Biden didn't remember he had the docs. While trump intentionally stole his, and refused to give them back. Huge difference. Hell, even Pence was more cooperative than trump was...
It's wild hearing stories like these because in the military we have several annual trainings on identifying, storing, and handling classified documents and information. And my job brings me nowhere near anything rated higher than Controlled Unclassified Information. Those who work in government and have actual access to such docs could benefit from some of our brain meltingly boring classes. A locked garage or scattered throughout the house is mind boggling in how careless it is for storage.
15:15 I believe "abstracted" in this case means that parts or all of its content was copied (while reworded and/or summarised). This was probably to ensure that even a "random" piece of classified information is protected accordingly.
We will have to have an actual change to the law I think. Maybe mandatory random sweeps from NARA/FBI for public figures? And specify that if it was genuinely an accident and you make every effort to immediately return them, you won't get charged (you definitely might get fired/voted out though)
Makes me realize how insignificant I am as a service member. I’m expected to maintain OPSEC about assets I work on and if not there’s a trip to Levinworth for a number of years. However, the leaders of the free world can blatantly disregard the regulations of safeguarding classified documents.
The thing that kills me is the markings bit. I could see someone making notes, like with that guy making drafts of his opinion, and maybe thinking that a note of some random section of an essay is not important, but if the document has markings on it to say it's classified, you definitely know it is important.
Seems fair. At least his lawyers notified the National Archives instead of hiding them. Not to mention they were mostly locked up. But if I did the same thing as a NASA employee, I’d be in SO MUCH trouble
Jeez. I can't even say how much classified information I've forgotten from my time in uniform (no, really, I can't say... because I've forgotten it... plus I wouldn't want to go to jail for accidental disclosure, because that "high standard" sure as hell doesn't apply to the pissants). And here's the bosses, just taking the stuff home and leaving it on the coffee table like bedtime reading.
I love how your whole career and livelihood can be destroyed over a petty useless document. Then our bosses bosses boss continues to derp around with it.
Now I'm trying to imagine which generation's teens would have done better in office. The 60s-70s would be a lot more peaceful, the 80s-90s a lot cooler, and 00s-10s would actually get some work done. Sounds fine to me!
This makes me think of the children's PBS series Arthur. In one episode he loses a library book. He imagines that from then on the library will only lend him a book that is chained to the library complete with a crank to recall it once due. Sadly, this overly dramatic idea sounds like a promising solution. Either that or weaved in tracking devices in every sheet of paper. I understand deadlines and the desire to be at home instead of the office. It's just mentally healthier to leave work figuratively and literally at work. You also conveniently prevent this problem. Part of the job is sacrificing a personal life and denying personal desires. Holidays, special occasions, vacations are things that get sacrificed. Have a secretary get a greeting card and a novelty gift from the store instead. Most of us survive just fine without vacations, and more are working holidays. Why should they be exempt? If they have work to do, go to the office to do it.
I’m totally willing to believe that for Pence and Biden, either through carelessness or just the confusing mess of overclassification, had those docs mixed in things they could keep and that’s how they ended up where they did. Whereas Trump was stuffing them into Time magazines with his face on them thinking nobody would look there.
Which is almost exactly the case. Thirty-some documents between multiple locations of a sitting politician with a decades-long career is a hell of a lot different from a busiman who BS'd his way into one term in office and repeatedly refused to turn over *hundreds* of documents he knowingly posessed.
It's important to point out that it wasn't Biden's lawyers who decided to immediately call the National Archives-indeed, they couldn't have made that decision-but Biden himself.
I feel like if you see like a briefcase/folder of top secret documents on the floor of the DC metro the best course of action would be to treat it like any other unattended luggage and just notify security. I'm sure they have related protocols and training and the less time it spends with you the better.
Biden "Please search and find them all." Pence "Oh Lord, did I do that?" Trump " Mine, all mine! I declassified them with my mind! My precious! MINE!!!!"
Pretty much how it's looking. The big difference between Trump compared Biden and Pence is the willingness to let the government come and get the documents. It's almost like Trump may have something to hide in those documents that Pence and Biden don't. Or at least they know how to play the game better and by being compliment with these documents any others they may be trying to hide may not be noticed.
@@-ThatGuy- Something to hide in the documents? Um, these documents are not unique, they are all archived. Keeping a copy doesn't mean you're hiding its contents.
Abstracting is copying or extracting information. A copy is word for word and in similar media(ie text to text, image to image), but an abstraction of information can be paraphrased or converted to new forms, for example reading text into your own memory or narrating a descripion of a visual chart over the telephone.
I love your videos. They are very informative and intresting to watch but at the same time, you can watch them in the background while you are painting like me. It's fantastic!!!
Hey there. Serious question. I worked in the Canadian Military as a Captain and I was always baffled by one thing, and I think it transfers to the way Americans and other allies handle docs as well. Is there a rule/law/mechanism in place that specifically stipulates where protected/classified docs are allowed to "be"? I understand that there are proper rules for storage, right down to what type of lock is authorized for the filing cabinet. But where are these docs allowed to be? From what I can tell, any location is authorized so long as the person in possession of the documents has positive control of the documents, and only those with proper screening, and a need to know are allowed to view them. But why aren't their actual laws in place that stipulate where these docs are allowed to be in the first place?
I had someone e-mail me a top secret document by accident. I immediately notified them, and reported it to security. I didn’t want to get in trouble for that.
Oh it's bad anywhere there's classified documents. I worked in IT for a small defense contractor (I just fixed the computers, I was frankly afraid to ask what the company actually did) and from time to time when cubicles are rearranged you can sometimes find folders labelled TOP SECRET the fell in the cracks years ago.
The biggest source of frustration is that politicians get relative slaps on the wrist for this stuff... While agency and military worker bees are threatened with having the book thrown at them if they're in the same situation... So much for a standard under the law.
As a guy who had a secret clearance and was able to look up any servicemember in the US Army as part of my job as a HR (S1) clerk - what the actual f*** is going on here? And I know it happens more often than it is being reported... But these are the heads of the government, they should be held to an even higher standard.
DC is a swamp that is what is going on. The government doesn't serve the common citizen it serves the interest of lobbyist and the revolving door of bureaucrats.
Different situations there’s one who was asked to return documents then refused resulting in a warrant and responding stupid lawsuits. The other likely didn’t know they still had them and complied with everything so it’s night and day.
Yeah, this doesn't seem that bad... He told on himself, complied with all efforts to investigate, and seems to have not done it on purpose. Knowing the kinda things that have been declassified it's extremely hard to keep track of all of it. They can be really mundane, and ppl I know who worked with it have told me there often frustrated by how pointless the classification is. The important thing is that people go through their records and regularly report anything they find. Anyone who has ever lost a paper could essentially be guilty of the same.
It’s actually pretty bad when you realize that not only did he not have any declassification powers as VP, but that he stored the docs at a think tank that’s received funding from China. Oh yeah, and he also lied about how the docs were “sentimental” files on his son’s death, and we know this because his claims don’t match up with the timeline of events. It’s also funny how Trump, who was in fact in constant talks with NARA and offered to return the docs if necessary, got his home hit with a surprise FBI raid just before midterms, and Biden got a little platform to use to smear Trump to help boost the blue. Biden lamented with his crocodile tears “Oooooh How horrid and unthinkable it is to see a former president handle classified documents in such a manner!” without knowing he’d later be exposed as being a WORSE offender of the crimes he berated Trump over 😂
He did all that, these “efforts” took 14 years to complete, they found documents for when he was a senator. He was last a senator in 2009 and since then been a private citizen with no clearance for 4 years
Yeah, it's blatantly not malicious or grossly negligent, just kinda way below the expected competence and care a typical middle schooler is trusted with. "Put things back when you're done with them" is standard protocol that kindergarteners are taught... and we don't let them move beyond elementary school if they haven't learned them yet. It's so incredibly disappointing that impossibly old children are given so much leeway on such basic principles.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 Lmao That’s not what the Democrats and MSM outlets were saying when it was just about Trump possessing classified documents! 😂 What Biden did was objectively much worse because he had no authority to handle such docs as VP; those powers belong to the president. And it’s scary to know that these docs were stored at a think tank, that was seemingly an empty shell of an organization, which received millions of dollars from the Chinese government. Coupled with the fact that Biden told glaringly obvious lies about the contents, such as saying it held sentimental value regarding his son’s death when his son died years after the docs first got there, it’s pretty clear he’s trying to cover up wrongdoing and his words bear _zero_ credibility.
I've held a high security clearance since 1988. If I was ever found to have taken even one classified document (regardless of classification level) home, the consequences would be harsh and immediate. The fact that politicians operate under a completely different set of rules as the rest of us and think themselves above the law is completely repugnant and sickens me to no end.
The gavel sitting on your cutting board is hilarious. I also love the image of you in full suit and apron chopping vegetables. Also, I've never mentioned this but I really appreciate that your ads come at the very end. I still love my UA-camrs who do it differently, but I very much prefer the ad spot to come right at the top, or the end of a video. I know it makes it easier to skip, but it's just a thoughtful thing to do for your viewers. And I never skip the ads on my first watch through!
Every OEF/OIF/OIR vet right now are going through their deployment boxes to make sure they no longer have classified maps, reports, photos, hardrives....
To my understanding, it happens a lot more than we'd expect, but hasn't been news worthy until a certain someone tried to hide and lie about having them. Like, at my job (developer), i sometimes make notes to remind myself to do things. So when i'm working from home and i have my notes there, that's stuff i could get in trouble about if it gets to the public. There might be some pages that i haven't gotten rid of and now can't remember them even existing, but it's not like it's super classified and i'd dispose of them properly if i found them again. But yes, there are many areas elsewhere where secret docs are kept track of much, much better than what our gov is currently doing.
@@superserpent4889 it's a problem if they're stored improperly (ie, left where they can easily be seen/taken, they get water damage) or not returned. The only reason it's been news worthy was because t*ump took many of the documents (boxes of them) on his way out (so we can assume intentionally), lied about having them, lied about declassifying them, attempted to prevent them from being returned, and has very likely given or sold some of them to people who should not have had access to them. After he handled it so poorly, extra scrutiny was put on others who have also found classified documents (intention of retaining unknown), but the others have quickly turned them over. Remember, we wouldn't have heard about any of this if t*ump hadn't forced the fbi to raid his home in search for the documents they'd spent months asking him to return. I hope that helps. Basically, it got so bad that now it's on our radars.
Considering that employees are expected to take home classified documents home where they don’t work when off. I find it hard to believe that government leaders who are never off and work from home all the time would not be allowed to
I once dated a girl whose parents were nuclear scientists in the soviet union, in Lithuania. Their security protocol was to have a ring of military around the city were the research was conducted. The facilities themselves had none. When the SU fell apart, so did the military security. So there was a time in the 90s, when people could just walk into nuclear power plants and alike to take bags of enriched uranium.
Top secret isn’t the highest level of clearance. Students in the defense engineering field can obtain a TS of a SC with little to no effort with a warranted background check
If anyone is found to be holding classified docs improperly, they need to have the same punishment I would have had if I did the same thing in my time in the military, regardless of who they are
He's really taken a reputational hit over the past couple years, hasn't he? I feel like prior to 2019 or so, Wilson was a Progressive icon and the only people you could find saying anything bad about him were a small handful of crusty old conservatives who didn't love the idea of re-segregating the military, or throwing Eugene V. Debs in jail for being a socialist. And now the tide has turned and nobody is defending him anymore.
⚖ Do you think the Biden and Trump situations the same or different?
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Did you name your video that so that the fox news zombies click on it?
@@Sableagle Exactly! Love the 6-year-old comparison
@@Sableagle But one guy granted those six-year-old girls adulthood, and all was OK.
@@Cajek2 But it's false.
@@Sableagle Dang, that is brilliant!
Finding out that everyone has classified documents makes me feel left out that I don't have any at my place
... or DO you? Never know! LOL
@@wendy645 Oh damn. Best go find out what's in all those boxes in my garage
You are really missing out
Check inside your underwear u might be surprised
Just start playing Warthunder. Lots of classified stuff on the forum.
I wonder why a sweep for classified documents isn’t a standard part of leaving high level office. Seems like an opportunity to tighten up if nothing else.
(Also, the only time anyone should announce where the 5th fleet is steaming to is when we're lying to the enemy in order to deceive them. ALL true operational details should be closely held.)
@@clocksurfer I was under the impression you're not supposed to lie about the information either, unless given proper authorization. It's certainly the case for when you're captured, though that's more about trying get people to not dig themselves into a hole that could piss off the captors. You just don't answer when asked.
@Ms. A. Laenius Agreed. I'm referring specifically to official public statements. Officials should only announce OpSec sensitive information to the press/public when it's intentionally misleading the enemy as part of sanctioned foreign policy. "Art of War" type stuff...
NARA slackin
Part of the problem with Trump is his refusal to work with the transition and refusal to leave the White House until the very last minute, which I'm sure added unnecessary time pressure to any attempt to filter what was being packed by his minions...
Sounds like EVERYONE in our government needs a refresher course on handling documents
Better solution, ban them all from government work forever, bring in a new batch. Don't bother sorting out who did or didn't jeopardize national security, just go full clean slate.
Everyone gets the training annually by legal requirement. In most agencies (if not all) they will literally suspend your credentials if you don't do it in time.
A tyranny sounds nice
Not really. 2 of 3 people found some they immediately recognized were not in the correct place, secured them & contacted appropriate agencies.
Probably from hearing about the 3rd who had been moving around to avoid detection.
A president who keeps his own, declassified documents is following the rules. A vice president who is leaving classified docs in an unsecured garage on some boxes, is a criminal.
They should do an audit of all the house and senate members to see how much documentation they are sitting on.
Get the feeling the main reason they wouldn’t is just, “How much time do you think we have on our hands? I’m not prosecuting hundreds of people!”
Yeah, I'm gonna guess no one has the time or energy for that. Especially since many of them are rich and have multiple properties to search.... and given what counts as classified documents.... I can almost guarantee 98% of them have something.
I think what the two people above me are missing is that this would be an “audit” not a criminal investigation. It can help lead to determining how to go forward when dealing with these lapses in security.
Start with Hillary!!!
They did that in Germany, but not with classified documents, but cocaine. They were very successful...
The government needs to hire some school librarians to keep track of the secret and classified documents!
This is actually a really good suggestion. I was a librarian for 20+ years, and now I am in charge of privacy compliance for my employer. I also serve on the committee that deals with data security and classification issues and policies. We librarians have the applicable skills. (I should add that I am not an American citizen, and so I could never be employed by the US Government as I cannot get a security clearance.)
Right
@@williamharris8367 If you became a naturalized citizen, you could still get a security clearance as long as you could pass a background check.
Not trying to suggest anything, just wanted to point out in case someone else was confused like I was at first.
Too bad Mr. Bookman, the library detective from Seinfeld isn't on the case.
The problem isn't that there aren't staff to perform these tasks, but that they don't have the authority to overrule the President or Vice President on procedural stuff like document handling. Can you imagine anyone telling Trump 'no' about anything?
My local library keeps better track of its books than the US does of its classified documents.
fun fact: while watching this, i expressed my frustration to my mother about these two taking things home when they shouldn't. my mother, who worked for the irs once upon a time, said it's actually way more common than i'd think, and proceeded to tell me a story of one agent who, after being retired for three years, discovered boxes of classified documents he had taken home for work. he had to hire one of those professional shredding trucks, once he reported himself to his old supervisors....
This. Everyone takes their work home with them worldwide, and nobody cares unless something goes wrong.
@@GoldenSunAlex exactly, I'm sure every President or Vice President has done it at least once if not more, it's easier to work on something if you have something with you, not saying that it's right or anything but I don't recall The Archives ever saying anything about missing documents until the last President did it, I have no issues with Presidents keeping such docs while they are in that office even though I'm not a fan of Don to begin with.
That being said, how he handled the situation was wrong, archives kept saying they were still missing some and instead of giving them up, the FBI had to raid him via a search warrant. Say what people want regarding Biden and Pence but when their docs were found, they immediately had it reported and surrendered them and if the FBI requested a search of their residence then they granted it.
Its stupid to prosecute anyone for this. They had it at one point for a legitimate reason for having it and ultimately its ridiculous that anyone is surprised that our legislators and presidents have classified documents. I don't care which president it is. I highly suspect that this has happened to every president in the history of the US. I mean it has never been an issue.
Yeah, I was a technician for an infantry battalion, and I actually found some classified cryptography notes in my backpack from a deployment nearly a decade ago. I can see how these things would get mixed up after years of service--
@LockGrinder just because they live there as a President doesn't mean that they live there 24/7, there are times where they want to go back to their actual home.
Its wild that these high politicians have nothing happening to them IMMEDIATELY.
I live in an area where a solid portion of jobs require clearance and stuff…I have talked to people who have either ACCIDENTALLY taken a sheet of paper home or just been accused…and they got the entire HR book thrown at them with the threat of having the LEGAL book thrown at them INSTANTLY.
The politicians are the ones in charge over whether or not they get in trouble, silly.
Remember; the justice system is carefully designed to protect them and harm us. Why would they harm themselves?
Yeah. That's what irritates me too - federal crimes should absolutely be something that polluticians of any level and persuasion should be responsible for. As it is, they literally can get away with murder.
OK racists
We need more booths and oswalds in the world today. We can't count on the legal system to do it's job against these people, maybe a physics lesson is required.
@@fearalice huh? Both those people murdered presidents, you can’t justify that.
During WW2 a random Canadian soldier cleaning an office after the Quebec Conference found a folder that he figured had been left behind and took it home as a souvenir. When he got home, he opened the file and... found D-Day landing plans. He handed the folder back on Monday, was visited by a half dozen very annoyed and angry policing agencies, somehow managed to not go to prison, got a medal for keeping quiet, and took the secret of which allied leader accidentally left invasion plans in his office to the grave.
I'm skeptical, but yeah, that's quite plausible.
What you do when you discover the docs is really what matters most.
Well that's how he managed to not go to prison. Someone was getting fired if he was getting jailed.
I'm reminded of the time a newspaper printed the names of the beach landings for D-Day in a crossword puzzle and got in trouble for it.
To be fair, to prosecutor the guy would have ben an open announcement that such plans existed. And the efforts to keep such plans a secret (to the point they obtained a corpse of a homeless person, cleaned/dressed the person up as an officer, locked a briefcase with fake documents on to the corpse's wrist, and dropped the corpse in the Mediterranean for the Spaniards to find and provide access to the Nazis before returning the corpse to the British), it was probably easier to scare the guy within an inch of his life to keep quiet. A trial would have been begging for attention in the media.
@@travcollier I'm sure there is some historical evidence to back up this person's claim, they just aren't providing it right now.
I love the way Devin almost shouted that sponsor segue
"HOMES ARE NOT FOR STORING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, THEY ARE FOR MAKING DELICIOUS HOME-COOKED MEALS!"
*segue
Too bad he never clicks the paid promotion box on his videos, when he has a sponsorship...
came here to say that. and so perfect
*segue
That resulted in me actually watching the ad, which I rarely do. I found it funny he was wearing a suite when cooking lol. I imagine if he's selling sponsored pillows in the future it will be him sleeping in the bed in a suite.
This is such a weird problem 🤔 like do we need to lend out classified documents like library books and start harassing them after 2 weeks or they can’t take anymore out? 📚
Charge them late fees. Make the fees like $10K a day and those rich politicians will basically be paying the taxes they should already be paying.
It's only weird cuz it's a problem at all like this frankly shouldn't be we should already have a system in place to prevent this stuff and the fact that there isn't or at least seems to be little over sight over important documents is extremely sus
You know you're not wrong.
Hahahahaha, ahhh what if I told you we mostly keep them electronically, and they aren’t that closely tracked unless they’re super crazy classified
We have millions of classified and billions of sensitive documents. We can’t track who’s printing them!
Actually surprisingly if you work for the DOD it's kinda like that.
I love this channel. I especially like that LE will hand over the reins to a specialist when the topic calls for it.
I used to work in the IT department of a regional law firm, and this is exactly how things operated internally. Sometimes I would even be asked to meet with attorneys if a case had a substantial technical aspect. A true discoverer will always seek out new knowledge rather than pretend to already know everything.
For how important these documents are I can’t believe there’s no check in and out system so people can know who has what.
I believe there is, but it's simply too much to keep track of. I'd assume numerous classified and sensitive documents go to the president and vice president every single day, as well as the countless documents and copies of documents for staff.
There may be an electronic system, but that is immediately more vulnerable to malice than an analog record.
@@MediumChungus223 yes but if a computer is managing it all then you can set instances such as the status of a person or if a person has documents for X amount of time, they need to be rechecked out. If that simple system was in place then it would have detected that Biden and Trump still had documents checked out but their status changed to regular citizen.
@@wolfarix no it’s literally not, because someone still has to enforce those documents getting back/ there’s 1.3 million people with access, often getting many docs at a time, with 3 docs every second being ADDED to the classification folder. That’s soooooo much
Plus, as noted in the video, if you take notes while reading a classified document, your notes are classified too.
Not only do these people handle a lot of classified documents, they generate them. And sometimes they generate them without anyone else knowing that they have done so.
On the flip side, ... I know of a case where a physics professor worked for one semester at another university. Some of the documents he handled were classified by the Department of Energy, and the filing cabinet he stored them in was clearly marked with a warning that some of it's contents were classified. Those markings were still on that filing cabinet years afterwards, long after all classified material had been removed and the cabinet had been repurposed by the next person to use that office.
What I am saying is that while in theory nothing should be marked as classified that actually isn't, practice doesn't always match.
And there's a whole spectrum of classifications and classified material. Some classified material isn't very important and/or isn't particularly secret. And we don't know what a lot of these documents were, beyond them being classified material (or at least marked as such). (Though some we do know about, at least vaguely. I believe Trump's documents have been said to include information on the nuclear capabilities of other nations and the names of US intelligence sources, and both of those are pretty big deals.)
@@avacadomangobanana2588 That could be answered by creating a special task force and the amount of added documents is doable. I mean look at the rate UA-cam uploads are.
This video answers better than any other media I've consumed about why all these documents keep getting found and then IMMEDIATELY turned over or announced. At first, I'm like, "wouldn't an aide or lawyer want to wait and protect their boss/client?" But hell no. If I could catch a felony if it's ever discovered I saw an NDI and didn't act immediately, there's no way I would risk my neck even if I thought my boss/client had just 'made a mistake.'
Turning it over also protects their client legally. The client can easily claim honest/negligent mistake if you hand it over immediately. If you hold it, the legal protection of "oops" disappears. It just hurts them from a reputation stand point.
Which, frankly, is a good thing. We'd rather have people take the reputational slap on the wrist and get classified documents back into protected areas and perform an assessment of the damage incurred than feel incentivized to hide their misdeeds so we have no idea that information got out, be continually exposed to it being outside of protection, and have no knowledge of what happened to it or who had access so that appropriate remediation could be taken.
@@forgottenfamily it does not help when it’s secret, rumored to have nuclear secrets, and is just the empty folder when they kick in your door after the 50th refusal that you even have it.
@@forgottenfamily Which really makes Trump's handling of his situation even more mind-boggling
@@tekkersmo3816 Does it? Considering the Nuclear Secrets thing was only mentioned in the Media and never by the FBI or DOJ. It wasn't like Trump straight up refused. They were going back and forth and the FBI had been at his place months earlier and had no issues. The reason for the delay with the documents was a disagreement over classification and personal record.
All the jazz and flamboyant nonsense from media heads turned out to be nothing. Instead of nuclear secrets it was his letters back and forth with Kim Jong Un. Stuff that legitimately is his own personal record considering the fact that nobody disputed Bill Clintons recorded calls from his time in office as "personal".
If Trump did something as bad as you all believe, he'd be in jail as we speak. The military have that power and the Democrat DOJ is keen to help if they can. If this was a proper threat to national security there wouldn't be this whole dog and pony show. You'd see results. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was negligent with her unsecured server with classified documents on it according to Comey. She had dozens of Classified documents on her server, some Top Secret. There was over 6 people without a clearance with access to that server on a daily basis from her assistant Huma, to Anthony Weiner and their tech workers like Pagliano. This was NOT a problem for ANY Democrat and the DOJ at the time even though this was years after her time in office. She was not apologetic about it and you guys pretend like this isn't a precedent setting event. This is exactly why they can't and wont charge Trump. They would have to charge her and Biden.
@@TheSandwichMonster You are hilariously delusional if you actually believe anything you just said
There is clearly a common thread however, refusing to return the documents to the point where the government has to forcibly retrieve them takes this to a whole other level.
Trump did return documents, just not all.
Same as Joe.
Main difference i see (next to the legal gray zone):
Trump was publicly raided with high manpower for documents stored in a secure location.
Biden was first kept silent then lowkey searched for documents, that were laying all over the place.
Yep, a rather important difference from finding it, realising you're not supposed to have it, and calling the department in charge of those documents
How about covering up that you broke the law before an election? Do you not think the public had a right to know about this discover on Nov 2nd , before the midterms?
Seriously, it doesn't matter that it waz Trump that did it, anyone who reacts the way that he did should be punished appropriately regardless of who they are.
And then start the propaganda machine via fox noise for a brain dead cult
We found top secret docs in my great grandparents house after grandma died (both worked for Army). We just immediately called law enforcement and asked what to do, and we followed the directions they gave us. But one was a clerk and one was a juniorish officer, and if people with that level of access have stuff lying around we have a BIG problem
Man that is crazy. Good on you for the doing the right thing tho 👏
the reality is that most classified documents... would be indistinguishable from normal documents if they weren't marked... it's WHY they're marked so carefully. But also it means the info is often... boring. Like access logs for a secure facility. Who cares what time various people came in? obviously there ARE nefarious uses, and good reasons to safeguard the data. But your average person could read the data, and not see it as anything of any value.
A lot of things get classified for.... routine reasons. X facility is secured, thus all access logs are classified, etc.... Knowing potential harm to the US requires knowing WHAT the documents are... and I suspect Biden doesn't care about things as mundane as access logs.
You really need to google what classified in secret actually means to the government.
I had a security clearance because I needed to be able to read 20 year old schematics for a military helicopter.
So a private can have a security clearance. However, I was not permitted to take any of them home.
Should have kept them.
Indeed. And that problem is the shear lunacy of the volume of totally worthless junk that gets classified.
I worked for a USG contractor once. They had very regular and very _thorough_ security inspections (and we only dealt in the lowest level of Classified materials). I find it hard to believe anyone is doing any kind of security inspections for elected officials or their staff--or else this stuff would've been caught within a few weeks at most.
It's almost like there's 2 sets of laws for commoners and the aristocrats...
It's really weird and kind of disturbing that a typical public library apparently has a better idea of where their books are than the federal government. Has it occurred to no one to give an official leaving office a checklist of "this is all the stuff you still owe us, make sure we get it before you move out?"
The sheer volume of documents that probably pass through the offices of the President or VP would likely make it impossible to inspect or track effectively. Not saying impossible, but it's almost certainly a lot harder than a low-level mook like us.
USG contractors or common government workers can easily get fired for it. The process just doesn't work that way for elected officials.
I think the total volume of paper is probably a large factor here. Like, how many million documents went through Biden / Trump/ whomever and their staff while they are VP or higher. What % were classified (and what % needlessly). What is the % of human error on those. Some errors like this are almost inevitable at that scale.
Having no mistakes is pretty much an impossible goal, it's how you deal with them that really matters.
Perhaps in future presidents will hire a "divestment" team or something to review all their documents and *reduce* this kind of mistake. I'll bet you a coke even then some would slip through to be discovered later.
I think (with a little experience) there's also a difference between working on something classified, and living a 24/7 life surrounded by it while also in the public eye and needing to undertake a multitude of duties outside that classified role. Every transition is a point errors can happen.
It almost seems like when people leave office, or maybe even more frequently for longer appointments, there should just be a regular audit process that goes through and does a search to clear out/collect classified documents. They'd have to come up with something like a fine so people don't just get lax about it, but it seems to be a common enough issue to maybe build in a protocol to deal with this more systemically
true but also sadly and I hate to come to his defense, they often deal with so many documents on a daily basis that stuff getting misplaced seems like it happens a lot more than we realize, so yes there should 100% be an audit process or something to at least remind people to check. Because things can easily leave someone's mind when they are doing many things at once.
Audits should be daily. We have computers folks.
You know, when I was a teenager working at a clothing store, we had to check each other's bags before we could walk out of the store, every time we left... Kind of embarrassing Suzy Shier had stricter safeguards in place than the whitehouse
Except you didn't work there 24/7 and were expected to take hundred of items of clothing with you back home to wear of an evening with just you and your 24 man secret service team to keep them safe over the course of 12 years or so. But only some of those clothes had to come back.
Now you've forgotten to return 12 out of hundreds or thousands of them.
Does that make it more relatable to you?
because we're minimum wage workers. if we steal something worth $2 the country will spend $1000 making sure we can never earn another $2... trapping a person in a cycle of stealing. *only mildly joking*
I'm sure you saw how many shoplifters they caught. And how many karens went unchallenged.
@@zyeborm Thank you. The world needs this explained to them just like this.
In fairness, I'm pretty sure that the security safeguards for low level employees with access to classified documents is stricter than the safeguards for, say managers. This is more like the people from corporate taking stuff home than a teenager.
As someone who used to handle classified documents up to TS/SCI I am still flabbergasted at how casual our leaders are about securing NDI according to regulations. If any of us common folk did that we'd be in jail or separated with a quickness. And the only reason I'm aware of for TS NDI to be at someone's home is supposedly that captains of nuclear missile subs have a special system at home that allows them to recieve TS messages dealing with ship's movement - so I got no freakin idea what those files were doing anywhere outside an approved storage location.
Rules for thee and not for me. They know they will be able to just get away with maybe a slap on the wrist if anything, so they don’t need to be as careful. When I was enlisted and working with classified documents and ammunition, I was so paranoid I was going to make an honest mistake and go to prison.
@@michaelgoldstein8516 Agreed
I can't help but feel like they're not in the mindset of "leave work at work" and just bring it home like anything else.
.
Now we know one way spies are going to consider getting docs, not that it's likely to be successful. 13 hours for a couple folders doesn't seem that lucrative, especially when they can't know what's inside.
It seems like elected officials aren't held to many standards. And the people we elect don't seem to hold themselves to any kind of standard.
Likely they don't think about it because they are just handed things, and have huge secretarial staffs and don't have intelligence agency backgrounds. They really should be going after the analysts who signed out the documents and didn't retrieve them.
I have a security clearance and feel like I need to share that alot of the times there isn't anything exciting on those documents.
Like how the army stocks and stores their toilet paper!
@@wendy645 Quite the opposite, sir. That could be an explosive matter!
Not exactly the same potential impact, but I've seen the "secret formula" for a major brewing company. It's just a bunch of numbers (concentrations, temperatures, etc.) in a spreadsheet.
@Radiatoren Well played
@@radiatoren8233 only in the marines. Those mofos have a few screws loose
My mom has been doing a cleaning and purge of her house. I should tell her to also keep an eye out for classified docs. 🤦🏻♀
lol!
Question. I remember Trump making a law that says officials who mishandle classified documents can never run for president. Does this mean Biden and Trump won't be on the docket in 2024? Because that would be amazing.
*Don't do that. Don't give me hope.*
Wouldn't it?? Ahhhh... We can dream.
It really would be best for America if demented 90 year olds weren't deciding everything
Each state controls (through legislation) who is on their ballot. It’s unlikely that any federal law would be able to bar states from putting someone on the ballot.
That never happened lol, he might have blathered on about it in one of his rallies but that isn't law, nor do I think it was ever even proposed in a bill. Electoral requirements are codified by the Constitution, so any changes can only happen through amendments (see the 22nd, which mandated 2 term limits)
We have terrible document control. Classified docs should be handled like library books. Check them out and, if you don’t return them, somebody comes looking for them…
With current technology it can be even simpler than that. Zero reason for any of these documents to be printed. Any data that needs to be taken somewhere for review should be stored on a biometrically encrypted key that automatically erases the encryption hash after 30-days rendering the key and the data on it useless. The problem is we hire people that are 70+ years old to office that can't even figure out how to set a clock on a car radio.
@0x736174616e20 The reason these documents are printed is that you can't hack paper.
It might be something that’s attainable. But people need to use these documents on a daily basis. Trying to create a very strict system for every document mean some people can’t really do their jobs anymore or at least not efficiently.
@@xe-wf5ivWhat about documentation that is later declared classified, like handwritten notes on a napkin from the President?
Your library...comes to your house to get the books back?
You know... it seems to me they could have a system where if someone has classified documents, they have to present a classified documents card, and then someone stamps the documents with a time period out, and they have to return the documents to the place they got the documents FROM, or they suffer penalties.
I'm scratching my head, wondering if we have any sort of system like that already set up. hmmmmm.
That's what we do with zoo animals, right?
@@luccaladinig2783 or books in a library...
@@luccaladinig2783 I want to know which zoo allows you to check out animals.
That's called Line of Custody, and every facility with security either private or otherwise tends to have a checklist/list of people who scanned their access card into areas and forms for who has possession of things known as a 'handreceipt.'
With classified material you also need special training to be a carrier and move those documents from one facility to another. This was a case of line of custody was broken and idiocy because once classified material is taken you better damn well always have that shit in your sight or hand until you transport it to the other location its authorized to be in.
@@Mortenthiar okay....seems to have some cracks in the system though if so many people have taken home documents, and in Biden's case, he had some for decades.
This is like listening to Trump Admin era Devin, when events were changing so quickly that we could almost view Devin's stress-induced aneurism forming in real time
ugh.
It’s not so much the fact that sometimes mistakes are made, it’s how people respond and react to being caught that matters more. You can say “ooops, I will cooperate completely and return everything immediately” or you can lie, lie, lie, give a middle finger, and then lie some more.
It's not the crime, it's the cover up.
That’s so cool you mentioned atomic clocks! My grandpa used to design atomic time standards and precision quartz oscillators, and the field of precision timing is so underrated. The physics are fascinating as are the mechanisms.
As a programmer, I hate your grandpa… (just kidding. dealing with time standards is hard in software because of the intrinsic problems with timekeeping, not necessarily because the people who made these standards didn't know what they are doing)
As more and more came out that there were documents everywhere, and the Archives literally asked "Hey everyone who's a former president or VP, can you double check your stuff?" - all I had in my head at that point was the Benny Hill Yackity Sax song. Like... how does this happen? If my library book is two seconds late I'm getting a ruder phone call than "please"
Now I want a political comedy broadway style musical to come out of this, complete with the disgruntled NARA assistant going "Is there anyone here who DOESN'T have top secret documents locked in a filing cabinet somewhere?!?"
Cut to all the politicians just nervously shuffling their feet and looking down.
It really does make you wonder if it isn't the Archives fault. Can't wait to see how many former officials have to turn in folders they recently found. I feel the Carter joke is going to come true.
It's very clear that we need to completely overhaul the way that classified documents are handled. Seems everyone who has access takes them home. We need to have like some sort of library system, so that we know who has what at any given time.
the problem isn't one of lack of procedures or training (although the latter may help).
The problem is that those procedures interfere with the work of 'important' people who don't want to wait for someone to sign the proper request forms in order to handle the classified documents.
Impatient people also tend to be really creative at finding loop holes that allow them to skip all that bother.
And when personell is easily replaced there's no one willing to risk their job by telling their boss that he needs to follow a procedure that literally does nothing except slow down his work.
also : how does one classify those records ?
I’m gonna go write “Classified” on an envelope and put it on my coffee table so I don’t feel left out. 😂
I like the cut of your jib mister.
I actually had some, but just like partial paitent reports that I never actually shredded not like government secrets
Well and the uranium and military intelegence remote access to private government networks and admin credentials.... now the fun part is figuring out if I'm kidding or not (hint my dad's a nuclear engineer)
Ex Navy Radioman here (1980-84 BMU2). I held a Secret clearance and as we were taught just because I had that clearance I had "a need to know." Also we had to sign out documents and where to read/study them in secured areas. This crap thats going on would surely get me a Courts Marshall and thrown in the brig if I done stuff like this.
yup but you were just an employee whereas the politicians are the bosses so like most things in life the rules don't apply to the boss. that's our country.
Yeah, well, when you're a star they let you do it. I heard that once, anyway.
It would appear that if you check the office/home of any former US official, you are likely to find something classified.
The fun thing about this stuff with classified documents, it's that they are classified. Like, they might contain completely unimportant/irrelevant/unusuable information in them, but they have the stamp, so it seems like you have to judge the whole process disregarding the contents.
Like, imagine having some grandma's secret cake recipe, but with an official classified stamp on it, and having to go through all these searches. That could be a hilarious comedy movie, lol
Yeah 99.99% of secrets aren't even secrets. There was a long period of time where Camp Peary wasn't acknowledged to be "The Farm".
yeah just like Trump.
who cares right?
lets focus on the chinese balloon biden let fly over the US for an entire week instead of this stuff
The even funner part is that as a rule the lawyers and investigators involved don’t have clearance for see or read those documents.
The thing is sometimes it's classified because of how they got it.
Like imagine if grandma was a dictator and only told the secret cake recipe to three people.
If it gets out she has three good guesses on whose a Spy'.
@@Estarilethis is an amazing movie idea
My grandmother used to work for the government. Growing up I was stressed to understand how important it is that you make sure you understand the classification level of any documents you take from your place of work. Maybe it's a government job. Maybe it's corporate. Either way, you don't want to get caught taking home something that your employer deems critically important because that is how you get slammed for espionage, whether seditious or industrial. In either case, you basically risk ruining any future gainful employment no matter what your work history and you risk ruining whatever legacy you may have otherwise built for yourself
Yeah, but while they are president their home is generally going to be classed as a place of work. It's a 24/7 job.
@@zyeborm Even if that is the case, Biden was VP at the time. Pence was VP at the time. Trump was no longer president at the time. So your argument is a bit of a moot point, is it not? Also, my comment had nothing to do with the specific situations, but rather as a general rule.
Me, having just done my annual security training where they instill the fear of God on us with the punishments for mishandling classified info: "Huh..."
I know. My brother is a submariner in the Navy. And thay is all he will tell me about what he does. As he should.
If it's any consolation, at least those annual trainings ought to prevent such a thing happening whereover you work... Hopefully.
Agent trying to find classified information: That's impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete?
Ex-officials: "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!"
We're on our way to the establishment of Sith Holocrons
that is how a lot of archives work sadly. If it is not in the database doesn't exist, database didn't add it properly oh well. I saw nothing.
“Lost a stack of classified documents, Master Biden has. How clumsy!”
@@oscaranderson5719 Master Government, there are too many corrupt politicians! What are we going to do?
I'm a special education teacher. In response to this, and now Pence, I took a plain filing folder and a wrote in chunky permanent marker "CLASSIFIED" on it. I've taken to leaving it in various places around my classroom. It's filled with random junk like the recipe for salt dough, a few recipes we have made in class, a few drawings my students have made, etc.
Although I missed Devin's high-speed report at the beginning your new legal eagle helper Spencer did a great job!
At this point I think someone should search Monticello to see whether Jefferson left any classified documents there.
Seriously, the systems for handling classified documents should be reviewed. I have a friend who's a retired navy captain who says that in that service, classified docs are tracked when they are removed from secure storage. They do weekly checks of docs that have been checked out to see whether they're where they're supposed to be, and to see whether they should be returned to storage. It seems we do a better job of tracking library books than of tracking classified documents.
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here!... This is the WAR ROOM!"
Woodrow Wilson "Underrated Villain" had me laughing SO hard! Thanx for the giggle.
Who are these security professionals that are letting politicians take this crap home?!
Should Biden be investigated to see if he handed any of these documents off to Lichtenstein or wherever? Yes.
Is there a difference between "hey, I found these, do you want them back" and "I don't have any documents, and even if I did they're my personal property, and even if they aren't what are you gonna do about it"? Also yes.
Is it concerning that for about five years the government not only didn't know where the documents were, but also didn't realize they'd lost the things? VERY YES!
im before reactionary youtube makes a video titled "LIBERALS are turning on JOE BIDEN" using your video in its thumbnail lol
Lmao i guarantee you that that is gonna happen in like 2 hours
You tend to find that liberals are far less tolerant of their elected representatives mistakes then Conservatives are.
@@i_fuze_hostages6 That's being generous.
At this point, top secret document handling may need a bit of tweaking to say the least. This is insane
Wasn't there a story of hunter using some of those documents in his correspondence with Ukraine. Either way this is insane they should check everyone who was ever in office, and take it all. They should follow up after leaving to make sure no one has shit. Solved.
Top secret is not the most secret.
It’s kind of in the middle
Thanks for featuring Spencer. He does a great job on these and he cracks me up! 😂
I just want to comment on the fantastic shots of you cooking and dicing vegetables in a full suit and tie, but with an apron. LOL... love your stuff. Thanks for doing what you do! :)
Honestly, it almost sounds to me like there's a relaxed culture in high government where not enough weight is given to proper storage and handling of important secret documents. Maybe this is just a problem of an unprofessional working environment when it comes to stuff like this.
Could've summarized it more succinctly by saying "there's a relaxed culture in high government where not enough weight is given to properly handling the job".
Also doesn't help when the majority of people in high positions of government are between 50 and 80 years old. So many of them aren't even internet literate either.
Not to mention Pence's estate also found classified documents. I think at this poi t there is enough of an issue that it warrants a sort of Q&A team to ensure classified documents are nit being intentionally or unintentionally held by outgoing administration staff.
ANY politician needs to be held to at least as high a standard as the people they govern. If any of US were found with Top Secret documents we would be charged and convicted in Federal Court. The same should apply to our sitting and former Presidents.
The reason people seek positions of authority is specifically for the privilege of being held to a lower standard. And, considering those with authority are the ones who determines which standards exist, and who they apply to... it's unlikely for that to ever change.
I really appreciate this video. I think one conclusion is that high level officials aren't as careful as they should be when it comes to classified documents. I can very much see a situation for presidents where they wish to avoid the inconvenience of only going over the documents at work and they want to be able to go over them from home.
What's TRULY HEARTBREAKING is that, NOT A SINGLE major news corporation has reported on this subject as clearly, and throughouly as this channel. Or news media is failing us...
@@eli-bt4he um, no. He waited, as he always does, to have enough information to do the video with depth and quality. the mar-a-lago had been going on for months before the actual raid.
@@eli-bt4he um, what are you smoking? It must be very powerful stuff. I mean this video broke it all down in great detail. It's clear Biden didn't remember he had the docs. While trump intentionally stole his, and refused to give them back. Huge difference. Hell, even Pence was more cooperative than trump was...
It's wild hearing stories like these because in the military we have several annual trainings on identifying, storing, and handling classified documents and information. And my job brings me nowhere near anything rated higher than Controlled Unclassified Information. Those who work in government and have actual access to such docs could benefit from some of our brain meltingly boring classes. A locked garage or scattered throughout the house is mind boggling in how careless it is for storage.
15:15 I believe "abstracted" in this case means that parts or all of its content was copied (while reworded and/or summarised). This was probably to ensure that even a "random" piece of classified information is protected accordingly.
We will have to have an actual change to the law I think. Maybe mandatory random sweeps from NARA/FBI for public figures? And specify that if it was genuinely an accident and you make every effort to immediately return them, you won't get charged (you definitely might get fired/voted out though)
Makes me realize how insignificant I am as a service member. I’m expected to maintain OPSEC about assets I work on and if not there’s a trip to Levinworth for a number of years. However, the leaders of the free world can blatantly disregard the regulations of safeguarding classified documents.
The thing that kills me is the markings bit. I could see someone making notes, like with that guy making drafts of his opinion, and maybe thinking that a note of some random section of an essay is not important, but if the document has markings on it to say it's classified, you definitely know it is important.
Seems fair. At least his lawyers notified the National Archives instead of hiding them. Not to mention they were mostly locked up.
But if I did the same thing as a NASA employee, I’d be in SO MUCH trouble
I mean you aren’t rich so the law still applies to you
But would it be that you were in trouble with your boss, or with the FBI?
@@domchappell4775 a little of column A, a little of column B…
But seriously, it would actually get me a “friendly” visit from DOJ
Seems like “crap, I left a few papers in the wrong filing cabinet” versus “I want these, and I am going to keep them, you CANT HAVE THEM”
i have classified documents. I classified my toilet paper the other day as top shelf butt fluff. True story.
Jeez. I can't even say how much classified information I've forgotten from my time in uniform (no, really, I can't say... because I've forgotten it... plus I wouldn't want to go to jail for accidental disclosure, because that "high standard" sure as hell doesn't apply to the pissants). And here's the bosses, just taking the stuff home and leaving it on the coffee table like bedtime reading.
I love how your whole career and livelihood can be destroyed over a petty useless document. Then our bosses bosses boss continues to derp around with it.
I think the real lesson we've learned is that we need to stop letting old people in the whitehouse
Now I'm trying to imagine which generation's teens would have done better in office. The 60s-70s would be a lot more peaceful, the 80s-90s a lot cooler, and 00s-10s would actually get some work done.
Sounds fine to me!
@@SimonBuchanNz the 70s we wouldnt have had vietnam, i wonder what that wouldve been like
Owl and Eagle, my favourite Birds of Prosecution
This makes me think of the children's PBS series Arthur. In one episode he loses a library book. He imagines that from then on the library will only lend him a book that is chained to the library complete with a crank to recall it once due. Sadly, this overly dramatic idea sounds like a promising solution. Either that or weaved in tracking devices in every sheet of paper.
I understand deadlines and the desire to be at home instead of the office. It's just mentally healthier to leave work figuratively and literally at work. You also conveniently prevent this problem. Part of the job is sacrificing a personal life and denying personal desires. Holidays, special occasions, vacations are things that get sacrificed. Have a secretary get a greeting card and a novelty gift from the store instead. Most of us survive just fine without vacations, and more are working holidays. Why should they be exempt? If they have work to do, go to the office to do it.
@0:46 Seinfeld voice: "So what's the deal with these classified documents?"
😂
🎷*bwadumbumbumbum...*
I’m totally willing to believe that for Pence and Biden, either through carelessness or just the confusing mess of overclassification, had those docs mixed in things they could keep and that’s how they ended up where they did. Whereas Trump was stuffing them into Time magazines with his face on them thinking nobody would look there.
Exactly!! 💯
Which is almost exactly the case. Thirty-some documents between multiple locations of a sitting politician with a decades-long career is a hell of a lot different from a busiman who BS'd his way into one term in office and repeatedly refused to turn over *hundreds* of documents he knowingly posessed.
@@Dramatic_Gaming and flushed them down the toilet
@@Dramatic_Gaming And that's called political bias.
@@chrism7574 So reality is politically biased?
It's important to point out that it wasn't Biden's lawyers who decided to immediately call the National Archives-indeed, they couldn't have made that decision-but Biden himself.
I feel like if you see like a briefcase/folder of top secret documents on the floor of the DC metro the best course of action would be to treat it like any other unattended luggage and just notify security. I'm sure they have related protocols and training and the less time it spends with you the better.
I’ve been waiting for this breakdown for weeks! Thanks Legal Eagle!
Biden "Please search and find them all."
Pence "Oh Lord, did I do that?"
Trump " Mine, all mine! I declassified them with my mind! My precious! MINE!!!!"
Pretty much how it's looking. The big difference between Trump compared Biden and Pence is the willingness to let the government come and get the documents.
It's almost like Trump may have something to hide in those documents that Pence and Biden don't. Or at least they know how to play the game better and by being compliment with these documents any others they may be trying to hide may not be noticed.
@@-ThatGuy- Something to hide in the documents? Um, these documents are not unique, they are all archived. Keeping a copy doesn't mean you're hiding its contents.
Abstracting is copying or extracting information. A copy is word for word and in similar media(ie text to text, image to image), but an abstraction of information can be paraphrased or converted to new forms, for example reading text into your own memory or narrating a descripion of a visual chart over the telephone.
I love your videos. They are very informative and intresting to watch but at the same time, you can watch them in the background while you are painting like me. It's fantastic!!!
I really like how y'all break down complex legal matters.
I love that Devin has hired somebody just to talk about criminal law.
Hey there. Serious question. I worked in the Canadian Military as a Captain and I was always baffled by one thing, and I think it transfers to the way Americans and other allies handle docs as well. Is there a rule/law/mechanism in place that specifically stipulates where protected/classified docs are allowed to "be"? I understand that there are proper rules for storage, right down to what type of lock is authorized for the filing cabinet. But where are these docs allowed to be? From what I can tell, any location is authorized so long as the person in possession of the documents has positive control of the documents, and only those with proper screening, and a need to know are allowed to view them. But why aren't their actual laws in place that stipulate where these docs are allowed to be in the first place?
Because that would be the smart way to do things. And this is America.
I had someone e-mail me a top secret document by accident. I immediately notified them, and reported it to security. I didn’t want to get in trouble for that.
Oh it's bad anywhere there's classified documents. I worked in IT for a small defense contractor (I just fixed the computers, I was frankly afraid to ask what the company actually did) and from time to time when cubicles are rearranged you can sometimes find folders labelled TOP SECRET the fell in the cracks years ago.
The biggest source of frustration is that politicians get relative slaps on the wrist for this stuff... While agency and military worker bees are threatened with having the book thrown at them if they're in the same situation...
So much for a standard under the law.
As a guy who had a secret clearance and was able to look up any servicemember in the US Army as part of my job as a HR (S1) clerk - what the actual f*** is going on here?
And I know it happens more often than it is being reported... But these are the heads of the government, they should be held to an even higher standard.
DC is a swamp that is what is going on. The government doesn't serve the common citizen it serves the interest of lobbyist and the revolving door of bureaucrats.
Different situations there’s one who was asked to return documents then refused resulting in a warrant and responding stupid lawsuits. The other likely didn’t know they still had them and complied with everything so it’s night and day.
This is an extreme example of why you really should leave work at work and not take work home.
Maybe they should tell the public what the exact contents of the classified documents were, so they can decide if it was important or not :)))
Yeah, this doesn't seem that bad... He told on himself, complied with all efforts to investigate, and seems to have not done it on purpose.
Knowing the kinda things that have been declassified it's extremely hard to keep track of all of it. They can be really mundane, and ppl I know who worked with it have told me there often frustrated by how pointless the classification is. The important thing is that people go through their records and regularly report anything they find.
Anyone who has ever lost a paper could essentially be guilty of the same.
It’s actually pretty bad when you realize that not only did he not have any declassification powers as VP, but that he stored the docs at a think tank that’s received funding from China. Oh yeah, and he also lied about how the docs were “sentimental” files on his son’s death, and we know this because his claims don’t match up with the timeline of events.
It’s also funny how Trump, who was in fact in constant talks with NARA and offered to return the docs if necessary, got his home hit with a surprise FBI raid just before midterms, and Biden got a little platform to use to smear Trump to help boost the blue. Biden lamented with his crocodile tears “Oooooh How horrid and unthinkable it is to see a former president handle classified documents in such a manner!” without knowing he’d later be exposed as being a WORSE offender of the crimes he berated Trump over 😂
He did all that, these “efforts” took 14 years to complete, they found documents for when he was a senator. He was last a senator in 2009 and since then been a private citizen with no clearance for 4 years
@@gavinnathe3778 No? Just a few months at most, as soon as the documents were found.
So what?
Yeah, it's blatantly not malicious or grossly negligent, just kinda way below the expected competence and care a typical middle schooler is trusted with. "Put things back when you're done with them" is standard protocol that kindergarteners are taught... and we don't let them move beyond elementary school if they haven't learned them yet. It's so incredibly disappointing that impossibly old children are given so much leeway on such basic principles.
@@dontmisunderstand6041
Lmao That’s not what the Democrats and MSM outlets were saying when it was just about Trump possessing classified documents! 😂
What Biden did was objectively much worse because he had no authority to handle such docs as VP; those powers belong to the president. And it’s scary to know that these docs were stored at a think tank, that was seemingly an empty shell of an organization, which received millions of dollars from the Chinese government. Coupled with the fact that Biden told glaringly obvious lies about the contents, such as saying it held sentimental value regarding his son’s death when his son died years after the docs first got there, it’s pretty clear he’s trying to cover up wrongdoing and his words bear _zero_ credibility.
I've held a high security clearance since 1988. If I was ever found to have taken even one classified document (regardless of classification level) home, the consequences would be harsh and immediate. The fact that politicians operate under a completely different set of rules as the rest of us and think themselves above the law is completely repugnant and sickens me to no end.
It's called a "need to know" in the service. You have your security level plus you must have a need to know.
Ah crap I just found classified docs in my sock drawer
Better than Sandy Berger then, I suppose.
Oh! is that where I left them !? Terribly sorry about that
The gavel sitting on your cutting board is hilarious. I also love the image of you in full suit and apron chopping vegetables. Also, I've never mentioned this but I really appreciate that your ads come at the very end. I still love my UA-camrs who do it differently, but I very much prefer the ad spot to come right at the top, or the end of a video. I know it makes it easier to skip, but it's just a thoughtful thing to do for your viewers. And I never skip the ads on my first watch through!
Every OEF/OIF/OIR vet right now are going through their deployment boxes to make sure they no longer have classified maps, reports, photos, hardrives....
Now that this is the 3rd time this happening it would be nice to improve the system to make things more secure
To my understanding, it happens a lot more than we'd expect, but hasn't been news worthy until a certain someone tried to hide and lie about having them.
Like, at my job (developer), i sometimes make notes to remind myself to do things. So when i'm working from home and i have my notes there, that's stuff i could get in trouble about if it gets to the public. There might be some pages that i haven't gotten rid of and now can't remember them even existing, but it's not like it's super classified and i'd dispose of them properly if i found them again.
But yes, there are many areas elsewhere where secret docs are kept track of much, much better than what our gov is currently doing.
@@catelynh1020 if it happens a lot why is is a problem?
@@superserpent4889 it's a problem if they're stored improperly (ie, left where they can easily be seen/taken, they get water damage) or not returned.
The only reason it's been news worthy was because t*ump took many of the documents (boxes of them) on his way out (so we can assume intentionally), lied about having them, lied about declassifying them, attempted to prevent them from being returned, and has very likely given or sold some of them to people who should not have had access to them. After he handled it so poorly, extra scrutiny was put on others who have also found classified documents (intention of retaining unknown), but the others have quickly turned them over.
Remember, we wouldn't have heard about any of this if t*ump hadn't forced the fbi to raid his home in search for the documents they'd spent months asking him to return.
I hope that helps. Basically, it got so bad that now it's on our radars.
@@catelynh1020 did you miss the fact that Biden had way more?
@@catelynh1020 and also lied about having them?
The issue is less about having them and more about refusing to return them.
What about the documents that were found but not reported until after the midterms?
This video is about those documents lol.
Great job Spencer, you nailed it in this video!
Considering that employees are expected to take home classified documents home where they don’t work when off. I find it hard to believe that government leaders who are never off and work from home all the time would not be allowed to
I once dated a girl whose parents were nuclear scientists in the soviet union, in Lithuania. Their security protocol was to have a ring of military around the city were the research was conducted. The facilities themselves had none. When the SU fell apart, so did the military security. So there was a time in the 90s, when people could just walk into nuclear power plants and alike to take bags of enriched uranium.
That's horrifying. Hopefully at least most folks knew better than to mess around with that stuff.
Top secret isn’t the highest level of clearance. Students in the defense engineering field can obtain a TS of a SC with little to no effort with a warranted background check
If anyone is found to be holding classified docs improperly, they need to have the same punishment I would have had if I did the same thing in my time in the military, regardless of who they are
Thank you for calling out Wilson as an underrated villain. He did so much more damage than people give him credit for.
Wilson was the worst
He's really taken a reputational hit over the past couple years, hasn't he?
I feel like prior to 2019 or so, Wilson was a Progressive icon and the only people you could find saying anything bad about him were a small handful of crusty old conservatives who didn't love the idea of re-segregating the military, or throwing Eugene V. Debs in jail for being a socialist. And now the tide has turned and nobody is defending him anymore.
@@ps.2 because the truth about how badly he warped the country and its foreign policy finally came to light
6 minutes in, I have heard plenty from the defense and deflection attorneys, and am confused as we usually lead with the prosecution.
Was thinking the same...