A former deputy director of the FBI has criticized the FBI for its “blatant disparity” in the way the agency has addressed the situations surrounding President Biden and former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified materials.
The first batch of classified documents in Biden’s possession was found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, just before the 2022 midterm elections, and was only unveiled on Monday. A search of Biden’s garage at his Wilmington home was conducted on Dec. 20, and the rest of the home was searched this week, according to Biden’s attorneys, when additional documents were discovered.
While the Trump and Biden cases show key differences, Chris Swecker, who served as a special agent at the FBI for 24 years and retired from the FBI as deputy director of Criminal Investigations, told Fox News Digital on Saturday that the Justice Department handles things with Biden in a “gently” way.
Referring to the treatment Trump received during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid last year, Swecker said there was “a striking difference in the treatment of somewhat identical facts when it comes to the Bidens.”
5 MORE CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FOUND IN BIDENS DELAWARE HOME, WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY SAYS
Attorney General Merrick Garland looks on as President Biden speaks during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 13, 2022.
(Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“You know, it’s kid gloves, it’s done in a very nice way, very posh,” Swecker said, noting that the Justice Department also appears to be allowing Biden allies to choose what gets reviewed and what isn’t considered what by the Properties is taken and what is not.
“I think this is another example of the posh way left and right are handled,” added Swecker.
Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber announced in a statement Saturday that five more pages of documents with secret markings were found Thursday night at Biden’s Delaware home, for a total of six classified documents from the house — in addition to those in the house discovered documents garage.
Sauber said when Biden’s personal attorneys identified a classified document at Biden’s home on Wednesday, they stopped searching for more documents because they lacked the security clearances needed to view those materials — calling into question the seriousness of the issue and why the DOJ does not appear to be assisting in searches of Biden’s homes or offices.
Under pressure from Republicans, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified materials Biden claims were “accidentally misplaced.” Garland hired Robert Hur, a former US attorney, to investigate.
BIDEN’S ‘IRRESPONSIBLE’ HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IS A BIGGER RISK OF ‘LEAKAGE’ THAN TRUMP’S, EXPERTS SAY
President Joe Biden is shown in the Oval Office of the White House on January 13, 2023.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Biden’s cooperation with the DOJ in investigating the classified documents was praised by Democrats. In his statement, Sauber emphasized that Biden “takes classified information and materials seriously” and said the president’s attorneys would “continue to work together” on the Special Counsel’s investigation.
“We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced and the President and his attorneys acted immediately upon discovery of this error,” said Sauber.
“Based on what we now know, Biden is unlikely ever to be charged while Trump is at high risk due to his obstructive behavior and other factors absent from the Biden case,” wrote Norm Eisen, an ethics attorney and Advocate for House Democrats in an opinion column for CNN. “The cases share special counsel and classified documents — but little else.”
Trump, Eisen argued, after months of discussions and a subpoena, resisted turning over the materials, insisting he had the right to keep them, while Biden said he didn’t know that classified documents — at least the first sentence – in his possession and his attorneys voluntarily turned them over to the DOJ.
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At the time of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, before it was publicly revealed that he had also been hiding classified material from his vice presidential days, President Biden questioned how Trump could be so “irresponsible.”
When asked why the FBI was leaving the search of Biden’s Delaware home for additional classified material to White House aides, Swecker said there should have been “an open investigation” already and it reminded him how the FBI was conducting the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton treated. who was able to avoid charges for using a private e-mail server during her tenure.
“This is a continuation of that kid glove, that gentle touch they have with things left of the political aisle,” he said. “On the right they come in with swat teams and search warrants and come hard. It shouldn’t be like that.”
“I think it’s bad for the FBI to use search warrants to do something like this,” he added. “They should subpoena, and they should do so in a way that amounts to an outright raid. But that’s not what they did to Trump – they just raided his residence in Mar-a-Lago… If it’s good for Trump, it should have been good for Biden too. There are differences in how these very identical circumstances were dealt with.”
At the time of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, before it was publicly revealed that he had also been hiding classified material from his vice presidential days, President Biden questioned how Trump could be so “irresponsible.”
(Getty Images, photo illustration)
Swecker also said he believes the documents found at Mar-a-Lago are in a much safer place than those in Biden’s Delaware home, which served as his residence for the time between his roles as vice president and president.
“I think they were safer in Mar-a-Lago, I mean it took an FBI SWAT team to get in there,” he said. “You can’t get through the gate. I’m sure there was a log there because he was still under Secret Service protection. [They] were locked in a closet, the hotel has cameras and security so it’s buttoned up pretty darn tight. They had arranged for it to be locked at the request of the archives and the Department of Justice.”
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“Now a garage door, you can go to any of these tech locations and program any garage door opener to open just about any garage door,” Swecker added. “[Biden] was not under Secret Service protection at the time, to my knowledge, and the house was vacant most of the time. This house was inherently unsafe. It’s a lot less safe than Mar-a-Lago.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House.
