years of waiting of errors, all we want is justice. we want this to go to trial. and it doesn't seem like that will happen any time soon given what happened today. charles like this are deeply concerning because they criminalize life saving work and set a dangerous precedent. indeed, there has already been a chilling effect with human rights defenders and humanitarian organizations forced to hold the human rights work in greece and other e countries. one of the world's largest muslim gatherings, the itching i is underway in bangladesh. hundreds of phases of people will come from all over the world to the outskirts of jacka, the festival dates back to the 1960s. and it consists the 3 days of prayers and lectures from scholars to discuss versus the koran. okay, let me take you back to our earlier story of the opposition led valleys, which are underway across to and is your mocking the 12 year anniversary of the jasmine revolution? demonstrators in the capital of

a settle broken through police barriers to access the main boulevard, is alive fixtures from to this mass rallies in 2011. lead to the us in your former presidents in el aberdeen, been ali and sparked uprisings across the outer world. today, june, is his opposition as a power grab by present i said, as reverse political freedoms gained more than a decade ago. we're going to speak to elizabeth volk, one who's join me now on the phone, alicia, tell me what's been going on at the moment. well, we've seen call sides popularity, started going downhill because there is serious food shortages in the economic situation. the beginning to spin out of control, people is asked him to provide solutions and he's not done anything except last chance at the position. so normally, before the power grab today would be very much a festival and very joyful occasion. but today you seeing a lot more people than we have done in previous demonstrations. and there is

a beginning of maybe not a coalition, but a co existent between the different political blocks who are opposing him. so we've got the, the labor union, the national salvation front, the democratic block, and also the, the, the free constitutional party led by abby lucy, who demonstrates and again it together today generally that quite disparate blocks . but we have seen some political parties, the republican policy. oh jill maria cooling for a more united front. so this may be the beginning of that unification over the different fractions. and in increasing energy to say enough is enough just very quickly, at least in a couple of sentences. is there any response from president how you said to try to appease the processes just in one sentence if you could we've not seen any

signs of that at the moment. certainly been a police violence for the moment. things are energetic but peaceful and is evoke when talking to us from soon as you lisa, thank you very much. indeed, this is a breaking story. we're going to be covering, obviously here on our disease. these are the headlines and the news is going to continue and i'll just 0 officer inside story that's going to be in about 25 minutes time. bye for now. ah, classified documents are found in the home and private office of u. s. president joe biden. that's months after the f b, i recovered secret papers from the residents of his predecessor, donald trump. so how significant are these latest discoveries and what are the

political implications? this is inside story. ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm fully back table. an investigation by a special council has been ordered into why classified papers were kept at us. president joe biden's, home and private office that says a similar inquiry is continuing into why secret documents were found stored at donald trump's florida residence. what are the implications of the latest find and it's timing and how do the 2 cases compare? these are some of the questions will be asking our guests in just a moment. but 1st, this report from our white house correspondent kimberly hawk it the discovery of a 2nd batch of classified documents. this time inside the garage of president jo

biden's, private residence has made it difficult for bided to quell this latest political controversy. people know, i take classified documents, classified material seriously. whitehouse lawyers revealed the documents for found recently and relate to biden's time as vice president under president barack obama . the white house lawyers and says they immediately turn the documents over to the national archives. still, the department of justice is appointing us attorney robert her as special counsel to investigate whether biden broke the law. i will ensure that mister her receives all the resources he needs the conductor's work. the white house insist to its cooperating and is denying any impropriety. it's in the statement of her from his lawyer, richard, somber, and at the end, he said, we are confident that they are thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, still,

it's in administration under increased scrutiny earlier this week, while biden was at a summit, in mexico, the white house admitted lawyers found similar secret papers and a washington d. c. think tank called the pen biden center. the president says he doesn't know what's in those documents, but the discovery has prompted charges of hypocrisy. in january 2022 classified documents were found at the florida residents of former president donald trump. a justice department special council is also looking into that case. biden has called trump totally irresponsible from his handling the classified materials. another folk hall by the, by an administration, but treating lot differently based upon your political beliefs. each one president trump one way, but treats president by the whole different way. president biden's republican

critics are also questioning why it took so long for the biden administration to reveal the existence of the documents. the 1st batch was discovered on november 2nd just days before the congressional mid term election. it only became known to the public this week. kimberly held can al jazeera the white house. well, let's take a closer look at the timeline of events. on november, the 2nd biden's lawyers discovered documents at a private office used by him in washington, d. c. that was 6 days before the mid term elections. the f b, i began an investigation a day after those elections on november the 9th to determine whether classified information had been mishandled in violation of u. s. federal law. on december, the 20th classified documents were found in the president's private library attached to his garage in wilmington, delaware. on january the 9th, the white house revealed more classified documents had been discovered in an office,

used by biden at the university of pennsylvania. on thursday, biden's lawyer told the justice department of the discovery of the president's home, a special council investigation was appointed. ah, let's bring in august now for to day show our shot. her son is a democratic political strategist. he joins us from buffalo, new york. james davis is a republican political strategist. he joins us from arlington, virginia, and joining us from vancouver, canada is glen call, a former central intelligence agency officer. thank you gentlemen, for being with us on inside, sorry, our shot. let me start with you and ask you about the timeline, which is the big question. everyone's asking, of course, given that the 1st batch of documents were discovered 6 days before the mid term elections. why did it take so long to tell the public about these discoveries? i think the most important thing about either these 2 cases with either these 2

presidents is the concept that no one should be above the law. so piece of the timeline that i think is really relevant here is that really speaks to how people behave is november. the 2nd we've found the pipe, the by the team found that the documents november the 3rd is when they handed them over to the national archives. they were within one day headed to the national archives, who they themselves then notified the justice department. the critical piece in this is that it took one day that's immediate in terms of government, in terms of the government acting for binding to turn over these documents. the comparison and really the contrast here between these 2 cases with the president trump and president biden, is that president biden held on to light about an un office gated investigation. taking up to 2 years, the government appointed a special council within a couple months over the holiday period of a finding finding out about these documents. whereas the trump, it took 10 months to hear,

the contrast is president by and his team acted immediately, acted swiftly to return the documents under custody and involuntarily investigated wherever else those documents might be. and in a few places, turned out more documents. and again, immediately handed them over. all right, this investigation continued. good. now i was going to ask james, his thoughts about the timeline and the fact that we're finding out about these documents some 2 months since they were 1st discovered. yeah, i'd hardly call anything about this media. i mean, he had the documents in his possessions for several years. of course, you know, the timeline of attorney, and we're notifying any kiddos on that part of it. but i mean, we don't even know what the scope of all the documents that he may have. are unsure, even president obama is looking in his goals to see if he has any documents. at

this point that's clear is that there's, there's a breakdown process. and in our archival system, and we are not tracking those like who should be monitoring this, how are we keeping those things secure? and you know, the bigger issue politically here is that it does require boxing because it is a blocker. see, you know, by, you could have come out and said, hey, we have documents to before the election. and it wasn't convenient to do that for them. for political reasons. are shad, i'll ask you to respond to that briefly before i bring in glenn. james says is a double standard here politically that isn't true. what we do know is that both president had documents. they were not supposed to have. the contrast is what they did when they found out that they were in possession of documents they weren't supposed to have. it's pretty clear from the investigation so far that donald trump kept these documents intentionally. he bragged about them and then tried to hold on

to them lied about how many he had. nothing like that has been the case with the binding ministration. we don't know, and so far the by the ministration has denied that they had knowledge of keeping these. they never showed these documents, anyone, never bragged about it to anyone and then handed them over immediately upon finding them. and most importantly, there's voluntary compliance on the part of the bite and team to hand these documents over and bring them back to where they belong. and the voluntary compliance with the investigation around this, the special council was appointed again within months of finding this out over the holiday break. this is a huge difference to what trump and his team did to keep those documents are glen. let me bring you into the conversation. please explain to our international audience, glenn, why the discovery of these classified documents, whether at present biden's or former president trump's residences is problematic. how much of a national security breach is it when classified documents remain with elected

officials? once they leave office, well, the answer is that it can vary from it's of no real consequence to it endangers the of the future in republic. it does depend entirely on the nature of the information classified information that hes, that is in question. there are multiple levels of classification from something called limited official use, which, which is formally not a legal classification. that one has to secure up to what is called compartment and information that which is more literally more secret than top secret. and there are some classifications and some kinds information that are so sensitive that even the name of the classification may not be stated except to those who have access. so you can't say it's called ultra, which that's a word one can use. so it,

it all varies. there are thousands, dozens of thousands of people in the federal government who have classification authority. i did as a routine matter as an operations officer in the cia, the documents i created, i decided how to classify that could be amended, but you have to take an initials by a superior, but one has to take an initial stab. so why would this be dangerous to have classified information that is poorly handled in properly handled or that could lead. there is the, the 1st risk of compromising sources and methods. now we should never reveal that a certain individual is working with u. s. government war that the u. s. has a certain capability that provides, it's an advantage, frankly. do we know what, what was in the documents, glen, do we know what was in the documents that were found at present biden's residence, right? it well, as far as i am aware, and i,

i have to go on only what i read in the media. of course, we don't know yet. we don't know the classification level. or we don't know the, the, the, even the broad subjects of the information. i will say broadly whether it's president x president trump, for president biden, or any other official, in particular, a political figure that the dangers are huge in having physical documents or as we have learned to the human electronic ones are outside a formally controlled space. we're classified documents can be observed and stored, that because there are thousands of papers in bits of information per day. they cross their one across each person's a desk and it becomes very, very difficult to control that end errors occur all the time. there is a very clear process used all the time in the national security establishment,

right. what does one in jane? what does the institution do when resolute? let me ask you what, what is it that triggered this? i mean that the fact that the present lawyers are saying that they found these documents and how is it different from the f b i rayed at my lago? well, the differences in how the seems pretty clear in, in the response which him leads us to some insight possibly about intent. but the response of the principal individuals are parties involved. it appears that president biden's lawyers found documents and then that day informed the appropriate authorities who then the following morning, retrieve them. whereas in the case of next president trauma, the absence of the law and the lack of certain documents that are in his file silver. okay, to archives you then inquired, and when having been stonewall been turned to the next authority, there's

a substantial difference that way. ok, all right, so arshad, there is the legal court, but there is also the court of public opinion. of course, the republicans now control the house and of campaign on the promised to investigate a president biden, and the biden crime family, as they call it. does the discovery of these documents not add fuel to the fire? at this point, there's nothing the democrats can't do. it can do that. republicans wouldn't find a way to criticize, so that's not really my worry. they'll figure out something to make into a big deal with the american people will respond to is whether or not our leaders consider themselves above the law, or if they believe in the rule of law. and for this, this is a serious matter for this. i think it's important to look at the behaviors, the actions of the people and a question here. as, as you heard from our national security expert, it matters what a person does because it speaks to intent. why would donald trump be holding on to

the secret top secret and compartmentalized information documents for 2 years, and then denied that he held them? whereas you take a look at the other side over here with joe biden. his lawyers found the documents turned them in immediately, and started cooperating immediately. the 2 actions, these 2 different sort of sets of behaviors will toby, american people who they can trust? all right, james, your response to that versus damage present. biden's long standing commitment to transparency. yeah, i think it does, and i think they're suffering a bit from the conditions created. the outrage created with the trump documents. the comments that president biden made in the media and his administration made in the media about the responsibility and how they were handling documents and all of those things compromising national security. those things are going to come back to

hong, and it's also gonna give more ammunition to house republicans who are going to look into this. and that will likely be tied to a 100 biden and his laptop and looking into those issues as well. at the end of the day though, the reality is we just need a better process for getting these documents back in it is. it's insane to me as someone who worked for secretary rumsfeld and secretary gates and actually worked inside a skit in the pentagon, that you have these documents just floating around and no one knows where they are . that's just not the protocol that we operate with. in my office. all right, so glenn, what is the, the protocol in these instances? is it possible so that these documents could have been shared with someone who's not supposed to be seen? oh well, it's certainly possible. the documents could have been shared with someone who should should not see them. the instant a document goes beyond

a secure space. there's, there's risk and someone can pass by someone can over here, someone can target the location where the information is kept. so all of that is certainly your risk, and it is an immense problem because the number of documents are huge. but the point that you 1st lead with is also really important. the protocols are a multiple of the defense department has a large number of them also which differs substantially from the cia which differ from those of the n, a say, and on and on. now all of them seek to achieve the same thing, but the, the processes differ. and then all of them, whether it's the defense department or the not the cia or national security agency, and so on. the have to interact with political figures, who are our superiors, our bosses, the policy makers, who are not professionals in this, and have different obligations and objectives and procedures. and that's always

a fear for a national security professional. that's something that will happen as we'd see did happen both with presidents trump and by i james of some of your republican count aponce, believe the d o j, the department of justice should be investigating president biden. and yet there is no evidence that he intended to conceal the documents. where do you stand on? what should happen next? well, i think, i think actually the attorney general made the right call. he called for a special investigation and, and on i think it was. he had to, i mean that was something that he had to do and it's important to restore the trust of our institutions and the justice department. people will be looking republicans, democrats, independents, and they will be evaluating on their own. ready and whether they be the 2 cases were treated fairly. i think it's really interesting to see what happens in the case. and, you know, depending on that outcome, what that means for, for biden,

i think if they prosecute jump and then they don't prosecute biden, or if there's not charges, i don't know, it's going to be very difficult. and i think markins are going to be looking at that. do you think it, it's buttoning to present biden's agenda? absolutely. i think it's just another another distraction. it's one more thing that they're going to have to worry with and continue to manage. i mean, this is an actual crisis. we have multiple days of news on it. we have multiple documents that you know, multiple locations for documents. now the investigation. so we're going to be waiting on that. there's going to be likely more drips of information throughout. and just from, as a columns professional, as a, you know, someone who handles crisis communications, you really want to get a sense of the scope of the problem from the front end. so that you can come out and you can share everything that you know. and you can continue to keep you updated as the, as the process goes on. and it seems like they don't really know the scope at this

point. all right, our shot your respond to this change. there's another distraction, especially when you know, inflation was falling, binds approval ratings were rebounding, and then you have this, this case. how are democrats and abundant ministration going to handle this? well, of course, the republicans are gleeful anytime that we can move on from what they were just doing in congress. failing to find their speaker failing to find any kind of agenda . so of course they'll latch onto this, but here's the thing. i actually welcome this investigation. the attorney general pick to a trump appointed us attorney, somebody who actually has years of experience investigating improper retention of classified documents. this man is highly qualified and beyond reproach. and because i agree with the biden administration's cooperation, the justice department, i actually feel like this investigation will wrap up quickly. they charge lightly

to overshadow the president's next month in office and potentially his bed for 2024 . if he decides to announce that i don't think so. one of the truisms in politics is that they cover up is worse than the scandal. but he has really been covering anything up. remember that as soon as he found the documents, he handed them over involuntarily. search for more documents handed them over because this is happening so quickly. i think this will resolved pretty quickly, and the charges are potentially quite different as well, with trumpets, obstruction of justice with a bite and it's the improper retention of documents. these are different charges and they're both very furious. the intention and the behaviors behind them paint the contrast. it will show americans what the differences between them present, who believes in the rule of law and transparency, and one who only believes in himself. all right, glen, call your thoughts alternately, what could come out of both these cases? well, there are 2 realities in 2 worlds that overlap intersects that are quite distinct

and there's the political world in a national security world. certainly in the political world, though, what has happened, both with trump and the biden is a political, a storm at least. and that's quite significant in has real consequences that our colleagues, sir, spend their time working on it from the national security perspective. it might be all of this, turn out to be a tempest in a teapot where it could be a typhoon that we don't know if the information simply is in the document, say contains a personal observation about a foreign officials character that could be embarrassing and you wouldn't want that to be made public, but that's not a grave national matter of no security. if the information, however compromises our strategy or policies or dispositions or capabilities, regard to north korea or china or anywhere else, then that would be a typhoon or would have huge implications. but we don't know that yet,

except to the extent that we know that there are 325 documents, some which we saw the have a high security, the classifications in the trump case. and it appears there are fewer documents with we don't yet know, but it seems not as high security that for bud. all right, james in arlington, i'll give you the last word. some have describe this as a political gift for the republicans. what are they going to do when it i, i don't know, i think the house will obviously tie this into the investigations that they're looking at, having in, you know, looking into 100 biden. whether or not, i know he had any involvement in this. there's already been some discussions about e mails that were sent to the pen biden center in advance of our, of the center being announced. and, and so i think a lot of that is going to just drip out over and over and over again. and it will

likely be a topic in washington for a while, but i think we can all agree that you know, regardless, republican and democrat. and it's in the best interest of our national security to get the documents that are outstanding, back into the archives, and to ensure that if they were to look at whether or not, you know, there was any compromise or information that was passed at all, or used in any sir, any way, shape or form, whether that would be with trump or with biden. and so hopefully that's where our country can go from here and briefly, do you think a former president trump legal team will benefit from this? i think though, the though certainly use it, but they're not just going to look at this. they're also going to look at hillary clinton's. are dr. white bla, likely and the digital files that she had, as you remember, and you know, we have to take them at the word being quite clean. and so that's going to be part of the discussion too. i shot briefly your response to that is not present biden,

but also hillary clinton's and it, all of this seems to be overshadowing the democrats agenda. the republicans love bringing up hillary clinton's emails and i think it's absurd. ill twin testify for month for hours in congress, every time they called on her and trump has done no such thing. the difference in behavior between, well, let's talk about hillary clinton too. and joe biden, when confronted with this, is that they go immediately transparently to devolve the information that is asked of them. i would hope that the trump administration would have done the same, but they haven't. that's why these are 2 different investigations. all right, we'll leave it there. thank you so much gentlemen. for a very interesting discussion. i'm sure we'll be talking about this some more in the next few weeks. thank you. shonda san james davis, glen call, and thank you as well for watching. you can always watch this program again any time by visiting our website out al jazeera dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page at facebook dot com,

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