How the Trump probe may be complicated by documents at Biden office
- The discovery of new classified files makes it a politically tougher sell to charge the ex-president over top secret documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago home
- Meanwhile, Republicans, freshly in control of the House, have asked for a damage assessment of the Biden documents
The volume of classified documents is vastly different, the circumstances of discovery worlds apart.
But the revelation that lawyers for US President Joe Biden have located what the White House says is a “small number” of classified documents in a locked closet is an unexpected wrinkle for a Justice Department already investigating Donald Trump over the retention of top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate.
Despite abundant factual and legal differences in the situations, Trump seized on the news in hopes of neutralising his own vulnerability – at least in the court of public opinion.
The development is unlikely to affect the Justice Department’s decision making with regard to charging Trump. But it could make a criminal case a tougher sell politically, hardening the scepticism of Republicans in Congress and others who have doubted the basis for a viable prosecution.
“I don’t think that it impacts Trump’s legal calculus at all, but it certainly does impact the political narrative going forward,” said Jay Town, who served as US attorney in the Northern District of Alabama during the Trump administration.
