Just a few months after criticizing former President Trump for his “totally irresponsible” possession of classified documents, President Biden has been put under investigation for his own mishandling of similar documents. In light of this hypocrisy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now investigating two presidents — one present and one former, one Democrat and one Republican — for the same dim-witted mistake. Even so, the discrepancies between the two situations are stark, and thus one is more blatantly unacceptable than the other.

President Biden’s legal team recovered the classified files in early November of 2022, right before the midterm elections. According to the President, he does not regret any of the actions he has taken since, including his choice not to publicly disclose the discovery for another two months. Instead of simply explaining that the President did not want to lose seats in the senate, his administration has focused on his cooperation during the process. President Biden’s lawyers say that he followed their advice not to touch or look at the files once they found them, and White House officials emphasize that he was completely willing to let the FBI into his homes to search for more documents as well as his personal, hand-written notes. But the President had to be cooperative. Anything else would look extremely suspicious; even his stay at Rehoboth during the FBI’s 13-hour search of his home came under scrutiny. After all, he could just be hiding there with the most incriminating papers while leaving the rest to be “recovered.”

However, there is no evidence of the aforementioned situation happening, and since his Rehoboth home had already been investigated, it is unlikely the President hid any other classified documents. In their search on President Biden’s Wilmington home on Jan. 20, 2023, the FBI only recovered an additional six files to those he had already disclosed, bringing the total to around 20 classified documents. These “stray papers,” as Biden refers to them, date as far back as to his time as a senator in the 1970’s and include those labeled “Top Secret” due to the grave danger it would pose to the American people if they were leaked. 

Of course, this can not begin to rival the whopping 300+ documents found in former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home alone. Dozens of these had the same Top Secret label, and some were marked important military documents. Falling into the wrong hands, these could potentially provide more information about our tactics than from all the spy balloons combined.

Although their role does not revolve around the protection of these documents like the FBI, both presidents still had training before they could access any classified information. For President Biden’s senatorial term, none of the papers were to leave the Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) they were housed in. As vice president under Obama, Biden not only had clearance to view the documents but was flooded with a stream of these confidential files at his desk. Former President Trump was in a similar, if not even more involved position as president. Nevertheless, each of them was reminded at the end of their respective terms that all classified documents must remain within the National Archives.

Former President Trump, defiant as ever, held onto the documents for nearly two years after leaving office, claiming they were his and not the government’s. According to his aides, he would actually walk off with charts, graphs, and other briefs that he didn’t necessarily understand despite their warnings against it. He also reportedly waved letters from Kim Jong-un in front of his staff as if to say, “Hey, look at what I got access to, aren’t I such a big boy!” This is the behavior people have come to expect of toddlers, not the president of the United States.

And yet, it wouldn’t be far out of the realm of possibility for one of his advisors to have to go, “No, Trump, hey⁠— give them back, that’s not yours. You know the rules, young man.” As a matter of fact, at least two chiefs of staff did, though not in those exact words. They had to request that he follow the laws regarding the preservation of documents. It’s clear how that turned out.

Even if President Biden’s claims are true, and he really had taken the papers found at his estates with drastically less forethought than former President Trump had, it must have been humiliating to find folders with those orange cover sheets after his condemnation. He’d done what amounted to berating his younger brother for stealing from the cookie jar, only to lift his pillow and find his own forgotten stash.

All of the partisan hate and fear fueled by the last two presidential elections has left parties feeling the need to defend one president over another. Republicans created the House Oversight and Accountability Committee to investigate FBI investigations for the fear that they were mishandling former President Trump’s case. Merrick Garland, the Attorney General and a Democrat, is trying to prove that he and the rest of the Department of Justice are handling President Biden’s case using the same, non-partisan rules. President Biden took these documents home when he did not have the clearance to take them out of the SCIF, but says he was unaware that he possessed them, and so far, he is fully cooperating with the FBI in their investigation. Former President Trump, on the other hand, took hundreds of files as souvenirs from his time with the privilege to access them. Though the distinctions in regards to intentionality, sheer volume, and clearance are enough to set these two apart, it is important to remember that both men made the same lapse in judgment, and in doing so, put the security of the United States of America at risk.