Tag Archive for: classified documents

Trump and Biden’s Iran Envoy Were Both Accused of Mishandling Classified Info

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One was allowed to stay on his job, the other was raided by the FBI.

Last year, the FBI conducted a raid of former President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

Biden’s Justice Department bypassed normal protocol for the raid, sidelined the FBI’s Miami Field Office, refused to assign a U.S. Attorney’s Office and pressured the FBI to go forward.

Next year, the Biden administration encountered an internal case of one of its top officials mishandling classified information. The mishandling of classified information on Iran, the linchpin of the Trump indictment, didn’t just hit any Biden official, but its special envoy for Iran.

Even as the Justice Department moved full speed ahead with targeting Trump, the State Department was aware that Rob Malley, Biden’s special envoy for Iran, was being investigated for mishandling classified information. Despite that, Malley remained on the job and apparently retained his access to classified information until his security clearance was pulled this spring.

Under investigation and with his security clearance suspended, Malley still officially remained the special envoy for Iran even though secretly he was no longer able to conduct some of his duties. Only at the end of June when the story broke, did the State Department switch from calling Malley the envoy to Iran to finally stating that, “Rob Malley is on leave.”

Within 6 months, the FBI had gone from a criminal investigation of Trump to a raid. It seems to have taken nearly that long for Malley just to be put on leave and it appears that he would still be named as the special envoy for Iran if the story of the investigation had not come out.

In one of the most awkward moments in an administration whose press conferences are full of them, State Department spokesman Matt Miller blurted out that he had “no comment” on Rob Malley’s status before assuring reporters that he was still the special envoy. And then Miller had to announce that Malley was on leave and his second in command was carrying on.

Prior to that, the State Department had offered misleading answers such as, “the Department of State, the Special Envoy for Iran, and his team remain deeply engaged on the formulation and implementation of US Iran Policy” while refusing to name who the actual envoy was.

The State Department had gone to great lengths to cover up the status of one of its top figures involved in an issue of major national security who was being investigated by the FBI. Not only did it not disclose that Malley no longer had access to classified information and had been forced to step away from some duties, but it actively obstructed reporters from learning about it.

The State Department’s official site, as of this writing, still names Malley as the special envoy. The Twitter account and other official State Department messaging accounts still carry Malley’s name. Had the story not come out from Iran dissident sources, we still would not know about it.

The surprise is not that Malley’s security clearance was suspended, it’s that he ever had it in the first place.

Robert Malley is the son of Simon Malley: a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party and an adviser to terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama was forced to boot Robert Malley over his meetings with Hamas on behalf of George Soros’ International Crisis Group. Once in office, Obama brought Malley back and named him to a succession of top positions even though Iranian opposition groups and pro-Israel activists warned that Malley was sympathetic to Iran’s terror regime and working against America.

Malley helped negotiate the deal that allowed Iran to continue developing its nuclear program while having sanctions lifted on the terror state. After Trump won, Malley rejoined the Soros ICG and was accused of conducting backchannel talks with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif to undermine the Trump administration in violation of the Logan Act. While Gen. Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, was investigated for violations of the Logan Act for lobbying foreign officials in support of a resolution on Israel at the UN, Obama officials like Kerry and Malley never faced an investigation over alleged Logan Act violations aimed against America and Israel.

Biden brought in Malley as the special envoy for Iran despite not only all of this history, but also the fact that his son, Blaise Malley, was working for the Quincy Institute run and funded by key figures in the pro-Iran movement, as well as George Soros. Trita Parsi, Quincy’s executive VP, a dual Iranian-Swedish national, founded the National Iranian American Council, described by Iranian dissidents as the ‘Iran Lobby’ which has been accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Robert Malley has spent his time as special envoy for Iran offering to give the Islamic terror regime anything it wants. America was “prepared to get back into the deal as soon as possible – as soon as Iran is”, he had pleaded. Iranian dissidents have held protests calling for Malley to be fired, condemned him and warned that he is working for Iran, not America.

The Biden administration was well aware that Robert Malley was not just another official. He was a political extremist who had been accused of inappropriate ties to enemy nations and terror groups for decades, whose father had been expelled from France, whose son was working for an outpost of the Iran Lobby, and yet an investigation into mishandling classified information was not only slow walked, but covered up to an almost criminal degree.

The State Department misled Americans and reporters about the status of its special envoy for Iran. And in the process it also effectively misled much of the world which has been monitoring the failed attempt by the Biden administration to restart the Iran Deal. Including potentially Israel. After a week in which the Biden administration had accused Israel of ‘leaking’ information about its plans to implement a non-binding ‘temporary’ deal with Iran, which was actually being leaked by Iranian sources, it has been caught covering up the misconduct of its Iran envoy.

The Biden administration’s coverup of its Iran envoy mishandling classified information is in sharp contrast to its purported concern over Trump’s handling of classified information on Iran.

An administration genuinely concerned with national security, especially when it comes to Iran, would never have appointed Malley as an envoy for Iran. Appointing someone with his history and connections to any national security position showed a total disregard for national security. Covering up for him reveals the scope of the State Department’s complicity in Malley’s actions.

As a New York Times story notes, “Mr. Malley is a boyhood friend of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; the two attended the same high school in Paris when their families were living in France.” Beyond Blinken, Malley was embedded in the system by the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations. He is part of a larger network of pro-Iran and anti-American officials within the State Department and the larger ‘blob’ of think tanks, activists, lobbyists, reporters and foreign agents that calls the shots on foreign policy. Malley’s alleged sin is theirs.

The treatment of Trump does not reflect a concern for the sanctity of classified information, but is motivated solely by targeting the political opposition.

When you have the wrong political views, the FBI will knock on your door even if you’re the former president of the United States. And if you have the right political views, even if you’ve been a walking security risk for two decades, the State Department will cover for you and you’ll be able to keep your title even while being investigated for mishandling classified information.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Says He’s Been Indicted In Truth Social Post

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Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday he has been indicted over his alleged mishandling of over 300 classified documents.

Trump said his attorneys have been informed of the indictment “seemingly” over the documents the FBI seized during the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home in August. He has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami, Florida, on June 13 at 3 p.m., according to another Truth Social post.

The indictment reportedly includes at least seven counts, including conspiracy to a scheme to conceal, willful retention of national defense information, and false statements and representations, ABC News reported.

The former president immediately pointed to the classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and his office located at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Page 1: The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is “secured” by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” the former president wrote on Truth Social.

“Page 2: I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” he continued. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

“This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America,” he concluded. “We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again!”

Trump proclaimed his innocence in a video posted to Truth Social, calling the indictment “the greatest witch hunt of all time” and an attempt of interfering in the 2024 election.

“Very sadly, we’re a nation in decline and yet, they go after a popular president,” he said. “A president that got more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country — by far — and did much better the second time in the election than the first and they go after him on a boxes hoax. Just like the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and all of the others. This has been going on for seven years — they can’t stop because it’s election interference at the highest level. There’s never been anything like what’s happened. I’m an innocent man. I’m an innocent person.”

Federal prosecutors informed Trump’s legal team of an investigation Thursday over his alleged mishandling of the documents. Trump faced another indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over allegations that he paid $130,000 in hush money to former porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.

The FBI raided Trump’s home in August to retrieve 15 boxes of classified documents requested by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The agents at the scene retrieved around 20 boxes of binders, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Roger Stone, information about the president of France, and binders of photographs.

Trump argued the documents were all declassified and in safe storage in an Aug. 12 statement.

In November, Biden’s lawyers found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank where he held an office when he was vice president. They discovered additional documents from the Obama-Biden era in the president’s private garage next to his Corvette in Delaware in January.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Jill Biden Blocks Alleged President From Reporters, Forbids Him to Dance

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One of the most spiritedly debated questions of the Biden regime is that of who is really running this particular dumpster fire. We know Old Joe isn’t in charge, but who is? First Lady Jill Biden on Thursday gave some fresh indications that she may be playing Edith Wilson to Old Joe’s Woodrow when she blocked reporters who were asking the putative president uncomfortable questions about his classified documents scandal and peremptorily forbade the superannuated figurehead from dancing at a Lunar New Year celebration.

A reporter called out to the so-called Commander-In-Chief: “Mr. President!” Biden, looking confused, turned around and said “What?” as the reporter continued: “Will you allow the FBI to search your Rehoboth Beach home?” Biden stared vacantly as Jill rushed to his side, holding her arms up and blocking the reporters from Old Joe, who dutifully turned around and shuffled off.

Jill Biden is not the first to block the faux president from answering uncomfortable questions; back in April 2022, even the Easter Bunny performed this all-important service. But it wouldn’t be seemly to have the man who is supposed to be president of the United States accompanied at all times by a six-foot-tall giant rabbit, so Jill Biden has apparently been given this job now.

The UK’s Daily Mail also reports that during the Lunar New Year celebrations at the White House, the old man asked his wife, “Are you going to dance?” Jill Biden responded: “No, you’re going to come up,” that is, to the stage. “Come on up, Joe! No, you’re not going to dance. Believe me, you don’t want to ruin the evening.”

Well, we can see who’s in charge, and we have known from the beginning of this misbegotten regime that it wasn’t Joe. Biden himself has made that clear on numerous occasions, as he did in August 2022 when he said: “I took control. I shouldn’t do that. I’m not allowed to do that.” In June 2021 at the G7 Summit, Biden said: “I’m sorry, I’m going to get in trouble with staff if I don’t do this the right way.”

At a press conference in Nov. 2021, he gave the impression that he was not supposed to take too many questions: “I can take… I’m going to get in real trouble… this is the last question I’m taking.” On Sept. 8, 2021, Biden announced, “I‘m supposed to stop and walk out of the room.” On Aug. 30, 2021, he told a reporter, “I’m not supposed to take any questions, but go ahead,” but when the question turned out to involve his catastrophic mishandling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said: “I’m not gonna answer Afghanistan now,” and walked away. On June 19, 2021, Biden told reporters: “I’ll take your questions, and as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I’m going to call on.”

Who gave Biden that list? Who told him he couldn’t take questions? We may never know because the establishment media is happy to play its part in this charade and doesn’t ask him uncomfortable questions. When someone gets out of line and gets a barbed question out, Jill Biden is there to take the befuddled sort-of Chief Executive by the arm and lead him out of harm’s way.

The Easter Bunny and “Doctor Jill” aside, however, it’s clear from the growing classified documents scandal that the shot-callers are running out of patience with Old Joe and that soon we may have our first female president, to the collective hosannas of the establishment Left. Or will we? Kamala Harris has been such an unprecedented disaster in the nothing job of vice president that the powers that be might find a way to get her out of the picture as well. For all his faults, Old Joe has one thing going for him: he has dementia.

That’s right: from the standpoint of the people who are running things, Biden’s failing cognitive abilities are not a bug; they’re a feature. Who could be more compliant and willing to be a figurehead than someone who simply isn’t capable of doing the job on his own and may somewhere in the recesses of his mind be aware of this fact? There is no indication that a President Harris will be as ready to take orders as Old Joe has been. So watch for it: could that be President John Fetterman waiting in the wings?

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Dems Run for the Exits as the Number of Mishandled Documents Multiplies

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As the scandal over Joe Biden’s classified documents widens, Democrats may finally be jumping ship. After weeks of holding their fire, party leaders showed the first signs of turning on the president after Friday’s revelations that a fifth batch of documents had been found at the Bidens’ Delaware home. In a string of interviews across the Sunday shows, the White House’s support seemed to crumble, as one Democrat after another blasted the president for his carelessness.

Biden should be “embarrassed by the situation,” the Senate’s second-highest ranking Democrat told CNN. “There’s a standard we follow when it comes to members of Congress and classified information,” Dick Durbin (Ill.) said on “State of the Union.” “To think that any of them ended up in boxes in storage one place or the other is just unacceptable.”

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who, like many Americans, was stunned to hear the president say he had “no regrets” about the revelations, argued that Biden “should have a lot of regrets. …[I]t’s irresponsible.” But it’s more than just “irresponsible,” the House’s new Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) explained on Fox News. It’s “downright scary.”

Some of the files, which attorneys say date back to his time in the U.S. Senate, raised serious questions from current senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “How on earth did he do that?” Cruz asked. “I’ve served in the Senate for 10 years. EVERY single classified doc I’ve read — 100% — have been in a secure SCIF in the basement of the Capitol.”

Meanwhile, the White House’s strategy seems to be projecting Biden as the picture of cooperation — a strategy that former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy says is nothing but a phony façade. “To try to stave off this chain of political disasters, Biden has decided to pose as a dedicated public servant who cooperates unfailingly with law enforcement because he has nothing to hide. Don’t fall for it,” McCarthy argues. “Team Biden has been playing games for two months. And clearly the president not only has things to hide; he has been hiding some of them for over 15 years.”

“A guy who has nothing to hide does not retain high-priced lawyers to pack up his private office,” McCarthy went on. “… Having lawyers pack up is the kind of thing you do when you’re a Democratic president who raked in millions of dollars from operatives of foreign governments, and when Republicans are about to take control of the House — and use its subpoena power to investigate.”

At the end of the day, McCarthy insists, “The president did not consent to an FBI search of his home because he is unconcerned. He consented to it because he knew law enforcement had more than sufficient evidence to compel a search of his home. From his standpoint, with his 2024 reelection hopes now teetering, it was better to pose as a cooperative volunteer than be forced to open his door to federal agents brandishing a judicial warrant.”

For now, Team Biden seems to be using the same game plan with Comer’s House investigation, which the president’s team promises to accommodate. In a letter to the Kentucky legislator, the White House says it will comply with “legitimate oversight interests within the Committee’s jurisdiction,” warning that it must also respect “the separation of powers and the constitutional and statutory obligations of the Executive Branch generally…” Still, White House Counsel Stuart Delery wrote, “We look forward to engaging in good faith with you and your staff regarding your requests.”

Comer will believe it when he sees it. On “Washington Watch” Friday, the chair told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “I could make a strong argument that the Biden administration is the least transparent administration in history. And the way they’ve started off in the first two weeks of my tenure as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which is supposed to be a check and balance on the administration, I can tell you — I don’t see it getting any better anytime soon.”

The appointment of a special counsel has Comer’s antenna up. “I’ve always been critical of the special counsel process. This is something that I don’t believe has ever proven its worth. …[M]y fear is when they appointed a special counsel for Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, that they would try to use that as a shield for saying, ‘Well, we would work with you, and we would give you the information … but we can’t because the special counsel is investigating it.’”

The irony, Comer said, is that he always felt there would be a special counsel, “but I [thought] it would be over Hunter Biden’s shenanigans and not Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.”

Now the two seem disturbingly linked.

A lot of the concern with these discoveries, Comer explained, are the national security implications. As far back as a year ago, Republicans tried to dig deeper into the connection between China and the Biden Center for Diplomacy at the University of Pennsylvania. “… I don’t think any of the press ever picked up on it,” he said. “We knew that the University of Pennsylvania was receiving more money from China than any other university in America, and we knew that Pennsylvania was funding the Biden Center for Diplomacy. So you could say that the Biden Center for Diplomacy was being funded by China. … We want to know who those anonymous sources were, because is China just giving money to the University of Pennsylvania because they like the job they’re doing. Or are they trying to get a return on their investment?”

That matters, Comer went on, because “when you find out that there are classified documents there — where potential Chinese Communist Party members are going in and out of. Then it’s a concern when you find out that Hunter Biden, who’s a national security risk, and Joe Biden’s brothers who have influence-peddled for two decades, are going in and out of a house where documents are just sitting in a garage. Then it’s a concern. So we are investigating Biden to determine whether or not this administration is compromised, because it makes no sense of all the money they’ve received from China.”

It’s a big job for the new majority — especially considering the other crises that deserve Comer’s attention — but he says Republicans are up to the task. “I have 25 other members of the House Oversight Committee. I would argue that they’re some of the top members of our entire conference. They’re aggressive. They work hard. … I believe that we’ve got plenty of places to start our investigation, and we’re going to go wherever the information leads us.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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White House, DOJ Worked Together To Conceal Biden’s Classified Doc Scandal: REPORT

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The White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ) worked together to conceal the discovery of President Joe Biden’s classified documents for months, according to The Washington Post (WaPo).

Days after the first trove of documents was discovered at the Penn Biden Center, a senior official in the DOJ wrote a letter to Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, asking for him to cooperate in the inquiry, WaPo reported.

The official also asked Bauer to get the documents but to not look inside, and requested for him to disclose where more documents could be located, according to the outlet. More documents were discovered at Biden’s Delaware residence Dec. 20, Jan. 10 and Jan. 11.

The White House had initially endeavored to find out how the documents had gotten to the Penn Biden Center and other locations, but on Nov. 10, the DOJ said it would be taking over the investigation, two anonymous sources told WaPo.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco refused to say Wednesday if law enforcement officials told Biden administration officials  to stay quiet, according to the outlet.

Although the documents were originally discovered Nov. 2, the news was kept hidden for months and only surfaced after CBS published a report Jan. 9. The White House Counsel office refused to tell the Daily Caller when Biden first knew of the documents, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the press office knew nothing of the documents until the CBS report.

Biden downplayed the significance of the classified documents on Thursday and said he has “no regrets.”

“I have no regrets in following what the lawyers have told me what they want me to do, it’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there,” Biden said.

“Look, as we found a handful of documents that were filed in the wrong place, we immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice department. We are fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he added.

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.