It's not just a question of firing--it's an offense that comes with prison time and fines, and in the past Biden has agitated for the imprisonment of those who mishandled classified documents
Also: are they allowed to bring them home? Presumably there's a policy, and presumably it's publicly available. That's what we should be referring to.
Yes, they obviously can bring them home, or on vacation, or to all kinds of places, because presidents and-to some extent-vice presidents-are always on duty. If Biden goes to Wilmington for the weekend, he is still receiving briefings and making decisions and doing those things might mean he needs access to classified documents. There actually aren't any official policies about this-there are policies about classification generally and they specify various requirements that agencies need to abide by and specify that these agencies need to have their own policies that fit with these guidelines. These things don't apply to the president.
Again, it's
not obvious. It's certainly
plausible, but I would want to see the text of the laws or policies governing the handling of classified documents. Whatever the rules are, they apply to everyone equally, or not at all. If Presidents need special dispensation, then that must be reflected in the laws or policies governing the handling of classified documents. And I would be
very surprised if it wasn't. There's no question that a sitting President may need immediate access to certain records, or access to someone who has access. But surely there are policies and procedures governing that access, if not outright laws. So what we need to know, I think, is what those are. (I believe that the GSA has regulations concerning their storage, for example, including what kinds of locks and cabinets are acceptable.)
But even if we grant that Presidents need to leave their documents strewn around various office buildings and residences,
such an exception obviously doesn't apply to people who aren't the President. And, unfortunately, this is true of at least some of Biden's documents (which are left over from his time in the Obama administration), as well as all of Trump's. On this score, the Presidential Records Act (if nothing else--and again, I don't know about laws governing classification, which is why I'm asking for their specific text) is very clear, even if it lacks teeth.
I don't have a good solution for what should be done about it, because yes, it's extra complicated when the person who violated laws or protocols is currently the top government official, and when the violation happened before they were in that position. You certainly can't strip a sitting President of his security clearance, after all. This may be a good case for deferred consequences. But what I don't approve of is the application of different legal standards to powerful people. Nobody should be above the law, and if the law is unjust, then the time to figure that out is
before you prosecute others for violating it--and, preferably, before
you violate it.
For what it's worth-there are various laws that involve unauthorized possession of government records-classified or not, but they all involve language about either intent or "gross negligence." I kinda doubt that Biden himself was packing documents in boxes and putting them in his garage so it seems quite unlikely there's going to be any kind of criminal charge here.
That may well be the case, but in that case my worry is about how that language has been interpreted when applied to ordinary people. So, for example, it doesn't seem to me like
Asia Janay Lavarello was any more negligent or nefarious than Biden (and certainly less so than Trump!), but she got three months in prison and a $5500 fine.
