A Watergate-era honor system for protecting top-secret information in the White House is clearly not working.
Revelations that Donald Trump, Joe Biden and now Mike Pence have mishandled classified documents expose the pitfalls of trusting presidents and vice presidents to appropriately share the nation’s secrets when they leave office.
They also raise the question of how many more documents will be discovered in the homes of the nation’s leaders. Trump took boxes to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Smaller sets of material marked as classified were discovered at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
More documents could emerge in the coming weeks, experts said, especially considering more records than ever are being classified as classified.
“If I’m an officer who has had access to classified documents in the past, I would immediately call my attorneys and tell them to start searching all of my stored materials immediately,” said Bradley Moss, a longtime national expert Security is following the Trump and Biden cases.
Outdated laws, increased use of telecommuting during the coronavirus pandemic, and a “tsunami of digitally created” records are weighing on the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office, which urged modernizing how it handles classified information in a July report to the White House.
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
A view of the National Archives Research Center in Washington, DC
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) criticized Biden in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s Sound On, saying reforms are needed.
“They now look at President Biden not just as a vice president but as a member of the Senate who ended up with classified documents,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine how anyone would have these documents in their home or not take proper care of these documents.”
“And clean up that process and make sure we streamline those protocols of how the documents are viewed, when and where they are viewed. How to subscribe and unsubscribe. It’s a reasonable move,” she added. Blackburn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said she would “love” it if the panel took action this year. Read more from Ryan Teague Beckwith.
Happened on the hill
CONGRESS SCHEDULE
- The House will meet at 10am with eight measures under suspension of rules for debate.
- The Senate meets at 10 a.m. with no votes remaining.
‘Show us your plan’: Democrats urge GOP to table debt proposal
Congressional Democrats urged Republicans to come up with a concrete proposal to raise the country’s debt ceiling and avoid a default after a meeting with the president on Tuesday biden.
Manchin Bill would pause EV tax credit without guidance
Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) wants to halt new electric vehicle tax credits that went into effect earlier this month until the federal government provides guidance on the stimulus.
Finance Committee Democrats urge IRS, tax court nominees, to hurry
A hearing to consider Danny Werfel’s nomination for IRS commissioner has not yet been scheduled, but members of the Senate Finance Committee have already begun meeting President Joe Biden’s top pick for the agency.
Extending the TikTok ban to all Americans is gaining momentum in Congress
Lawmakers are stepping up efforts to ban TikTok in the US, saying the social media app threatens national security.
Senators show Swiftie Bona Fides at Antitrust Hearing
When it comes to last year’s Taylor Swift concert ticket debacle, senators just can’t shake it.
McCarthy blocks two Democrats from rejoining the intelligence body
speaker Kevin McCarthy said he was blocking the California Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from serving on the Intelligence Committee, making good on a long-held promise, and opening a new front in the Chamber’s partisan struggles.
McCarthy says Santos can be removed, but only for crimes
McCarthy said George Santosthe embattled freshman rep from New York, could be impeached if the chamber’s ethics committee finds he broke the law — but only then.
around the administration
BIDENT’S AGENDA
- Biden has no public events scheduled.
- At 1:30 p.m., White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will give a briefing.
Biden immigration plan targeted by GOP-led states
A coalition of 20 mostly Republican-led states complained against it biden Government is trying to block new US plans to grant temporary stays under a parole program to certain migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Intelligence finds missed warning signs in recent mass shootings
Attackers showed warning signs of the vast majority of recent mass shootings and other acts of violence, federal researchers said in a report aimed at helping communities identify threats.
White House plans meetings between Biden and McCarthy before Feb. 7, Punchbowl reports
The White House intends to invite Speaker McCarthy to meet President Biden ahead of the Feb. 7 State of the Union address, Punchbowl reports, without specifying where it got the information.
Nursing homes blow up Biden team’s new inspection reporting policy
The nursing home industry is urging the Biden administration to repeal a new policy allowing controversial facility inspection results to be published on a public government website before the alleged “deficiencies” are confirmed.
Medicaid Expansion helps promote smoking cessation treatments
Medicaid expansion is improving access to smoking cessation treatments, according to a report by the American Lung Association released Wednesday.
The DOJ is urging the rail regulator to deny the CP Rail-Kansas City service
The US Department of Justice sent a letter to the Surface Transportation Board to reiterate its opposition to the Canadian Pacific Railway’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern.
The Justice Department’s Google case adds to a growing scrutiny targeting Big Tech
The Justice Department lawsuit filed against Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday adds further allegations of anticompetitive behavior to mounting antitrust cases against a tech industry dominated by Google, Amazon, Apple and meta-platforms.
DOL’s Wage Arm pledge focuses on child labor despite no rule changes
Democrats and security organizations want the US Labor Department to continue its efforts to enforce child labor by reexamining certain restrictions on the types of jobs minors can hold, but the Biden administration says it doesn’t have the breadth of the range regulation to make such an update.
Department of Labor considering 401(k) guidance to expand pooled plans
The US Department of Labor is considering regulatory measures that would encourage participation in the types of pooled retirement options that Congress introduced in 2019 to encourage more companies to set up and sponsor workplace 401(k)s.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michaela Ross in Washington mross@bgov.com
To contact the publisher responsible for this story: Andrew Klein at asmall@bgov.com