Trump didn’t cooperate more than Biden in classified documents cases

A recent Justice Department report said President Joe Biden would not face charges for retaining classified documents.

Former President Donald Trump, who is facing an indictment for not returning classified documents following his presidency, weighed in on the report.

“I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more,” Trump wrote in a Feb. 8 statement.

The question of whether Trump did anything wrong will be litigated in court, but the claim he cooperated more than Biden is “absurd,” according to PolitiFact.

“Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” special counsel Robert Hur wrote in the Justice Department report on Biden. ” … In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.”

When Biden’s lawyers discovered classified documents in his post-vice presidential office on Nov. 2, 2022, they immediately alerted the National Archives and Records Administration and the files were returned the next day. Documents also were turned in after being found in the garage of Biden’s Delaware home. The president’s team consented to searches by the FBI and no search warrant was issued.

Trump, on the other hand, attempted to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigation, suggested his attorney hide or destroy documents, and attempted to delete security footage from his Mar-a-Lago home, according to the indictment.

Trump’s failure to cooperate and refusal to return the documents resulted in a search warrant and an FBI search of his home in August 2022.

Biden misleading on document classification

Special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents concluded the president should not face charges. Following the release of that report, Biden was interviewed by reporters, answering questions about his handling of the classified materials.

“It wasn’t out like in Mar-a-Lago, in a public place. And none of it was high classified,” Biden said during a Feb. 8 news conference. “It didn’t have any of that red stuff on it, you know what I mean, around the corners? None of that.”

But Biden’s statement is misleading, according to PolitiFact. There is not a category named “high classified,” however some of the documents recovered were of the government’s highest classification.

Government documents are classified in three categories based on how the information would affect national security if the data was to fall into the wrong hands. The highest classification is top secret, followed by secret and confidential.

In the batch of documents recovered from Biden, 18 originally had been classified “top secret,” according to the report. After a review by government agencies, five of those had the classification lowered and another five recovered documents were reclassified as “top secret.”

“For a layperson, I would consider anything that's labeled top secret as highly classified,” Texas A&M University associate professor Gary Ross told PolitiFact.

As for the “red stuff” that Biden mentioned, classified documents often come with a cover page which includes colored borders. Top secret documents have a cover sheet with an orange border, secret documents have a red border and a blue-bordered sheet covers confidential files.

But not all classified documents include a cover page.

“If a document doesn't have the cover sheet on it, that doesn't mean that it's not classified,” Ross said.

Osama bin Laden didn’t meet with Bush

A photo making the rounds on social media appears to show Osama bin Laden meeting with former President George W. Bush.

“PLANNING THE #911falseflag — NOTHING TO SEE HERE,” reads the caption to a photo purportedly showing Bush and members of his administration sitting around a table while meeting with bin Laden.

But the photo is fake, according to The Associated Press. The image, taken on Sept. 12, 2001, a day after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has been altered to include bin Laden.

The original photo was taken by a Mai Photo Agency photographer and distributed by Getty Images. The caption reads, “At table Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (4L) introducing staff members to President George W. Bush (5L) at their Pentagon meeting re 9/11 terrorist attack.”

Bin Laden, who was killed by a U.S. commando operation in 2011, was not at that meeting.

Evans photo miscaptioned

A link to a TikTok video, posted to Facebook, features actor Chris Evans.

“Here is sn (sic) American actor putting his signature on a bomb that then is dropped on Palestinian civilians. Chris Evans — never heard of him until now — let's see how his career goes after this ‘in the moment’ pic goes viral,” reads the caption on a photo showing Evans signing an object.

This is a real photo of Evans, but that’s about all this post got right, according to Reuters.

The image is from Dec. 5, 2016, and it has nothing to do with the current Israeli-Hamas conflict. It was actually taken at an air base in Turkey when Evans, Scarlett Johansson, former NBA player Ray Allen and other celebrities were part of a United Service Organization, or USO, tour. The group was entertaining service members who were away from their families during the holidays.

• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.