Mike Luckovich for January 15, 2023

It’s a matter of degree and intent. Also, how it was handled – obstruction versus transparency and correction.

The amount? “They had to count them all” (The Beatles)

That cart is way to small, the Orange Baboon needed an 18 wheeler to shift his loot. But maybe that is all his tiny hands could manage.

Trump stole, under his direct orders, hundreds of documents including more than 160 with classified markings including TS/SCI (including nuclear secrets), lied about having them, claimed to own them, refused to comply with orders to return them to the point where a search and seizure operation became necessary to secure their lawful return.

Biden staff moved some vice presidential papers to his home and think-tank offices that incidentally included a very small number of documents (about 12) with classification markings. Biden attorneys discovered the mistake before receiving any request for return from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), immediately notified NARA and returned them as quickly as possible, within less than 24 hours.

“Borrowing” classified documents? Compare to “borrowing” library books that are late in getting returned and become “overdue”:

Biden case: a parent’s kids use the parent’s library card to check out several books but then the kids forget to return them and they go overdue. Parent finds the books, realizes they are overdue and acknowledges responsibility as the card holder, calls to notify the library and promptly returns themand pays whatever fine is due.

Trump: intentionally sneaks hundreds of books past the librarian on duty and out of the library, including some extremely rare special editions (possibly with intent to sell?), and when the library finds out he took them because of signals from attached anti-theft devices, the library demands the return of the books and Trump refuses. He finally relents and gives back a few books, lies and says that’s all he has, and it takes a police raid to finally recover the entire trove of rare collections.

I think it is a great cartoon. The way Trump has papers under his fake hair is hilarious.

Of course, this is the same GOP that weaponized government against Bill Clinton for 8 years, wasted billions on investigations to eventually nail him for a in-office BJ.

Not to diminish Trump’s equivalent of Hillary’s extreme carelessness, but the ramifications of Hunter’s dealings with China suggest a more serious problem. Trump and Hillary will skate on mishandling document, but the Biden situation requires the special counsel to investigate rigorously without political motivation.

Funny, a when I heard about this, I was thinking the same picture, Ha!

Narcissism vs Senile dementia

Yes, tell that to all the people who have been charged, convicted and punished for doing less but lack the position and connections of a Trump, Biden or Clinton.

I believe the President has the power to declassify any classified material he wants to. The Vice-President does not have that power. Joe broke the law. Donald did not. Those are the facts. There is no argument.

Own goal… geez. Somebody said the fiasco will save us from an unforced error of making Trump a martyr over his document theft. I guess i’ll choose to believe that…

DNC needs to throw Biden under the bus like he did to Anita Hill. The DNC future is not with Joe Biden.They are stuck with Kamala Harris right now, which may not be as bad as some people think.

Let us investigate both. Let us also remember that one turned over documents to the NARA very quickly while the other one sued to have the documents – including documents pertaining to our defense against nuclear threats and attacks – he had in his possession returned to him even though he had no rights whatsoever to personally possess them

Difference one was allowed to take them the other did not one had the power to declassify the other didnt and would you rather see one of you politician transport documents in seal boxes to a place protected by secret service or having your politician not even been aware of what when he took top secret documents nor where he left them ?

ya know what’s really top secret? who the trumpkin has been bopping lately. sure ain’t Melania.

The real differences are the blatant lies from the dumpster fire formerly known as the president.

It took Merrick “the turtle” Garland two years to appoint a special prosecutor for trump…but two days to appoint one for Biden. What does this tell us about Garlands intentions?

BIDEN’S COOPERATING!!! That should mean something.

When even Karl Rove (of all semi-people) points out that Trump’s case is hundreds of times worse than Biden’s, you have to wonder just how idiotic or how insane the maggots are.

Did Joe try to flush his Corvette down the toilet?

Wow, republicans are now doing all kinds of accusation because Biden had papers and Trump has papers and republicans want to indict Biden.

Trump campaigned on phones and servers that were not secured and then in office all his people used any secured and unsecured device the wanted to and republicans did not make a peep.

Still applying lipstick to the pig, I see!

Other differences include a refusal to return the documents, lying about returning all of them, hiding them, claiming ownership of them, claiming they were declassified, and failing to respond completely to a subpoena for the documents.

You forgot Trump flailing his fists like a four year old

 60 Years Later

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Nēgro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Nēgro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Nēgro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Nēgro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Nēgro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

(continued)

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Nēgro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Nēgro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Nēgro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Nēgro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

(continued)

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Nēgro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

15+ boxes of documents aside, I have a memory of watching footage of Trump aides taking stuff out of the White House around the time of the transition: Boxes that may have held silverware and a painting or three.