Did Biden sow the seeds of his own destruction in 1977? One key event can make itself felt

As more and more illegally held documents turn up in various unsecured locations in President Joe Biden’s homes and offices, one cannot help but be reminded of the criticism he gave former President Donald Trump for having classified documents. This may seem like a one-time occurrence; however, in 1977 he also used wrongful possession of documents against others, especially against then-President Jimmy Carter’s nominee for director of the CIA.

This event may come back to bite him.

So far, Biden’s office in Washington, D.C., the garage of his Delaware home, and the home itself have been found to contain at least three shipments of illegally stored documents dating back to his tenure as former President Barack Obama’s vice president.

The latest revelation was announced just a few days ago, when several outlets, including Fox News and The New York Times, reported that the president’s lawyers had confirmed that a third batch of classified documents had been found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

The first batch of classified documents was reportedly “found” on November 2 – a week before the fall midterm elections – in Biden’s former office at the Pennsylvania Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., but neither the Justice Department nor the National Archives bothered to mention this incident until January.

Then a second batch was found at Biden’s home in Delaware.

On January 12, the president tried to brush off questions about the insecurity of the documents, saying that those found in his garage were “in a locked garage” and not “out on the street.”

.@pdoocy: “X-Files next to your Corvette?
What were you thinking?”

President Biden: “I’ll have a chance to talk about all this, God willing, soon… My Corvette is in a locked garage, okay? So it’s not like they’re sitting on the street…” pic.twitter.com/1gVvJo0dfH

— xpan (@cspan) January 12, 2023

While Biden is quick to dismiss any criticism of his handling of classified and secret documents that he shouldn’t even have in his possession, he is even quicker to use that possession against others.

Naturally, Biden attacked Trump after the unprecedented raid on the ex-president’s home in Mar-a-Lago last year.

— How could this happen? Biden stated this during an interview with the 60 Minutes program. He added: “How can someone be so irresponsible. And I thought: “What data was there that could compromise sources and methods?”

But his scolding of Trump is far from the first time Biden has used possession of documents against his political opponents.

Biden also used illegal possession of documents to thwart Jimmy Carter’s candidacy for director of the CIA in 1977.

As his presidency was being prepared, Carter appointed Ted Sorensen to head the CIA. But after he had questions about covering up the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in the Chappawiddick incident of Ted Kennedy, Carter dropped Sorensen’s name.

But not only the Kennedy problem prevented Sorensen from taking the highest post in the CIA. He was also attacked by Biden and others for mishandling classified documents.

According to The Intercept, at the time Carter was running Sorensen for the CIA, the nominee admitted to having taken secret documents for a biography he intended to write about his longtime friend John F. Kennedy.

One of the outspoken opponents of Sorensen’s handling of documents was none other than the then Sen. Joe Biden.

At first, Biden acted like he was a friend of Sorensen and said he would help him through the confirmation process. But when Republicans took notice of Sorenson’s mishandling of classified material, Biden took the plunge and used the allegations to knock Sorensen out of the CIA race.

In fact, Biden unearthed an affidavit that was never filed in court as a weapon against Sorensen. A former White House adviser later said Biden’s sudden reshuffle and his subsequent meeting with Republicans to block the nomination was shocking.

“It was like being blindsided by a truck,” Sorensen said, describing the campaign to prevent him from taking the CIA position as the result of “lots of dirty little streams.”[ing] together to make one big one.

Biden went further than just helping the Republicans find the documents. He even suggested that Sorensen could be prosecuted for espionage.

“To be honest, I’m not sure if Mr. Sorensen can be charged or convicted under the espionage law,” Biden said, according to The Intercept. He then asked whether “Mr. Sorensen deliberately took advantage of the ambiguity in the law, or casually ignored the law.”

Naturally, after all this, Carter excluded the name of Sorensen from the list of applicants for a place in the CIA. Sorensen later criticized Biden and said he should receive “a prize for political hypocrisy in a city known for its political hypocrisy.”

In both 1977 and 2022, Biden was shocked. shocked, I tell you – for indecency of documents illegally in the hands of officials. But suddenly it doesn’t bother him at all.

Looks like Ted Sorensen might be right about the hypocrisy award that Joe Biden deserves.