administration but treating law differently based upon your political beliefs treats one president trump one way, but treats president biden a 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 first batch was discovered on november 2nd just days before the congressional midterm election. it only became known to the public this week. kimberly helcott 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 dc. that was six days before the midterm elections the fbi began an investigation a day after those elections on november the 9th to determine whether classified information had been mishandled in violation of us 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 have 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 at the president's home a special counsel investigation was appointed. let's bring in our guest now for today show arshad hassan is a democratic political strategist. he joins us from buffalo new york james. davis says a republican

political strategist. he joins us from arlington, virginia and joining us from vancouver. canada is glenn carl a former central intelligence agency officer. thank you gentlemen for being with us on insight story our sharp. let me start with you and ask you about the timeline, which is a big question. everyone's asking of course given that the first batch of documents were discovered six days before the midterm elections. why did it take so long to tell the public about these discoveries? i think the most important thing about either these two cases with either these two presidents is the concept that no one should be above the law. so peace of the timeline that i think is really relevant here. is it that really speaks to how people behave is november the second we've found or the pipe the biden team found those documents november the third is when they handed them over to the national archives. they were within one day and into the national archives who they themselves the notify 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 biden to turn over these documents the comparison really the contrast here between these two cases with president trump and president biden. is that president biden held on to lied about in an obfuscated investigations taking up to two years the government appointed a special counsel within a couple months over the holiday period of finding about finding out about these documents whereas with trump it took 10 months so here the contrast is president biden and his team acted immediately acted swiftly to return the documents under custody and then voluntarily investigated wherever else those documents might be and in a few places turned out more documents and again immediately handed them over. all right, let's investigation. continue. yeah good now it's gonna ask james his thoughts about the timeline and the fact that we're finding out about the document.

is some two months since they were first discovered. yeah, i'd hardly call anything about this immediate. i mean he had the documents in his possessions for several years, of course, you know the timeline of turning over notifying. i mean kudos 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, you know, i'm sure even president obama's looking in his calls it to see if he has any documents at this point. it's clear. there's there's a breakdown process and and our our cobble 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 recover hypocrisy because it is hypocrisy, you know, biden could have come out and said hey we have documents too before the election and it wasn't convenient to do that for

them for political reasons. i'll shut up. key to respond to that briefly before i bring in glenn. james says there's a double standard here politically. that isn't true. what we do know is that both presidents 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 administration. we don't know and so far the vitaministration has denied that they had knowledge of keeping these they never showed these documents to 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 biden team to hand these documents over and bring them back to where they belong and

voluntary compliance with the investigation around this the special counsel was appointed again, we then months of finding this over the holiday break. this is a huge difference to what trump and his team did okay to keep those documents. alright, glen. let me bring you into the conversation now, 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 its of no real consequence to it endangers the future of the republic. it does depend entirely on the nature of the information the classified information that has that is in question. there are multiple levels of

classification from something called limited official use which is formally not a legal classification. that one has to secure up to what is called compartmented information, which is more literally more secret than top secret and there are some classifications and some kinds of 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 where one can use so 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 improper handled or that could lead there's the the first risk of compromising sources and methods we should never reveal that a certain individual is working with the us government or that the us has a certain capability that provides it an advantage frankly. do we know that what what was in the documents glen do we know what was in the documents that were found at present biden's residence? right. well as far as i am aware, and i i have to go on only what i read in the in the media, of course, we don't know yet. we don't know the classification level. we don't know the the even the broad subjects of the information. i will say broadly whether it's president ex-president trump or president biden or any other official in particularly political figure the dangers are huge in having physical documents or as we have learned

to even electronic ones outside a formally controlled space where classified documents can be observed and and store because there are thousands of papers and it's of information per day. they crossed everyone across each person's desk and it becomes very very difficult to control that and errors occur all the time. there's a clear process used all the time in the national security establishment, right? what does one do what does the institution do when result let me ask you what what is it that triggered this? i mean the fact that the president's lawyers are saying that they found these documents and how is it different from the fbi raid at mar-a-lago? well, the difference is in how the seems pretty clear in the response which in leads us to some insight possibly about intent but the response of the

principle individuals or parties involved that it appears that president biden's lawyers found documents and then that day informed the appropriate authorities who then the following morning retreat them whereas in the case of ex president trump the absence or the law of the lack of certain documents in his file discovered. okay to archives you then inquired and when having been stonewalled then turns the next authority. so there's a substantial difference that way. okay. all right. so arshad there is the legal quote but there is also the court of public opinion, of course the republicans now control the house and they've campaign on the promise to investigate 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

that democrats can't do 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 what 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 in 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 secret top secret and compartmentalize information documents for two years and then deny that he had them. whereas you take a look at the other side over here with joe biden his lawyers found the documents turn them in immediately and start a cooperating immediately the two actions these two different sort of sets of behaviors. the american people who they can trust.

all right, james your response to that. does this damage present biden's long-standing commitment to transparency? yeah, i think it does and 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 irresponsibility and how they were handling documents and all of those things compromising national security. those things are going to come back to home and it's also going to give more ammunition to house republicans who are going to look into this and likely be tied to hunter biden and his laptop and and looking into those issues as well at the end of the day though. the reality is we just need a better process more getting these documents back in it is insane to me as someone who works for secretary rome spell and secretary gates and and actually worked inside a skip 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 operated with in my office. all right. so glenn, what is the protocol in these instances? is it possible also that these documents could have been shared with someone who's not supposed to be seen? oh, well, it 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 is there is risk as 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 first led with is also really important the protocols are multiple. the defense department has a large number of them also which

differs substantially from the cia which different from those of the nsa and on and on all of them seek to achieve the same thing, but the processes differ and then all of them whether it's the defense department or the cia or national security agency and so on have to interact with political figures who are our superiors our boss. policymakers 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 something that will happen as we see did happen both with president's trump and by them. all right james some of your republican counterparts believe the doj the department of it should be investigating president biden and yet there's 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 i think it was he had to i mean that was something that he had to do it's important to restore the trust of art is institutions and the justice department people will be looking republicans democrats independence and they will be evaluating on their own and whether they believe that the two cases were treated fairly. i think it's really interesting to see what happens in the trunk case and you know, depending on that outcome what that means for fo think if they prosecute trump and then they don't prosecute biden or if there's not charges. i don't know it's gonna be very difficult and i think americans are gonna be looking at that. do you think it it's to president biden's agenda? absolutely. i think it's just another another distraction. it's one more thing that they're gonna 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 people 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 child you'll respond to this james says another distraction, especially when you know inflation was falling biden's approval ratings where rebounding and then you have this this case how a democrats and and the abundant administration 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 on to this. but here's the thing. i actually welcome this investigation the attorney general picked 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 with the justice department. i actually feel like this investigation will wrap up quickly, you know likely to overshadow the president's next months in office and and potentially his bid for 2024 if he decides to announce it i don't think so one of the tourisms in politics is that the cover-up is worse than the scandal, but he hasn't really been covering anything up. remember that as soon as he found the documents. he handed them over. he voluntarily searched for more documents handed them over because this is happening so quickly. i think that this will result pretty quickly and the charges of potentially quite different

as well with trump. it's obstruction of justice with a biden. it's the improper retention of documents. these are different charges and although they're both very serious the intention and the behaviors behind them paint the contrast that will show americans what the difference is between a president who believes in the rule of law and transparency and one who only believes in himself. all right glenn, call your thoughts. ultimately what could come out of both these cases? well, there are two realities in two worlds that overlap intersect but are quite distinct in this the political world and the national security world certainly in the political world what has happened both with trump and the biden is a political storm at least and that's quite significant and has real consequences that are colleagues are spend their time working on. for the national security perspective. it might be all of this turn out to be a tempest in a teapot or

it could be a typhoon that we don't know if the information simply is the documents say contains a personal observation about a foreign officials character, that could be embarrassing that you wouldn't want that to be made public, but that's not a great national matter of national security if the information however compromises our strategy or policies our dispositions our capabilities with regard to north korea or china or anywhere else then that would be a typhoon. it would have huge implications, but we don't know that yet accept the extent that we know that there are 325 documents some which we saw have high security 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 providing. all right james in arlington. i'll give you the last words some have described this as a

political gift for the republicans. what are they going to do with it? i i don't know. i think the house will obviously tie this into the investigations that they're looking at having and you know looking into hunter biden whether or not you know, he had any involvement in this there's already been some discussions about emails that were sent to the penn biden center in advance of 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 democrat. 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 information that was passed along are used in any way shape

or form whether that would be with trump or would biden and of hopefully that's where our country can go from here. and briefly do you think a former president trump's legal team will benefit from this. i think though they'll certainly use it, but they're not just going to look at this. they're also going to look at hillary clinton's our drive like likely and the digital files that she had as you remember and and you know, we have to take them at the word that they like clean and so that's gonna be part of the discussion too. i shot briefly your response to that. it's not just present biden but also hillary clinton's and 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. hillary clinton testified for months for hours in congress every time they called on her and trump has done no such thing the difference in behavior between let's talk about hillary clinton too and joe biden when confronted with this is that

they go immediately transparently to divulge 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 two different investigations. all right. we 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. ashara, san james davis glenn call and thank you as well for watching. you can always watch this program again anytime by visiting our website at i'll just sierra.com for further discussion go to our facebook page. that's facebook.com forward slash aj inside story you can of course also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at aj inside story for me fully batty boy and the whole team here in doha. thanks for watching. bye for now.

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