How the Biden and Trump classified documents cases compare

The revelation that aides to Joe Biden discovered classified documents as they were moving boxes out of the president’s Washington-based think tank offices already had the potential to be a political headache.

Now a second batch has been found in a garage at his Delaware home, the embarrassment will deepen further.

It could also place him in legal jeopardy, although too little information is known about the documents and why they were not stored securely at the US National Archives to draw conclusions yet.

Mr Biden’s critics are quickly drawing comparisons between these disclosures and the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified material following his departure from the White House.

So how do the two compare?

Both men appear to have mishandled classified material and now have a special counsel looking deeper into what they did wrong.

Under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives once an administration ends. Regulations require such files to be stored securely.

Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, is looking into why hundreds of files ended up in Mr Trump’s Florida home and whether his team obstructed efforts to retrieve them.

And on Thursday it was announced that a Trump-appointed prosecutor Robert Hur will look into the Biden case.

According to news reports, Mr Biden’s personal lawyers found 10 classified documents – some marked Top Secret – included in a box of other material in a storage closet at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

A “small number” of classified documents were found in a second discovery inside the president’s garage at his Delaware home.

That contrasts with the more than 325 classified files – including some marked with Secret and Top Secret designations – discovered over the course of last year at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

The documents discovered in Mr Biden’s office were marked “sensitive compartmented information”, according to CNN, indicating the material could involve intelligence-gathering methods and sources. They reportedly included information about Ukraine, Iran and the UK.

Of the 300 Trump documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, one set had a similar SCI designation.

Mr Biden’s personal lawyers discovered the classified documents as they were moving out of the Biden Center’s Washington offices on 2 November. The following day, they turned the material over to the National Archives.

The second trove was found on 20 November as part of a search of all Mr Biden’s properties by his lawyers.

The two-month gap between the first Biden discovery – days before the midterm elections – and the news being made public in January raises awkward questions for the president about transparency.

In Mr Trump’s case, the National Archives initiated contact with Mr Trump’s office after determining that it did not have possession of some notable records from his presidential term – such as correspondence with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

The former president’s team provided the government with some material, including classified documents, but archivists did not believe the president’s team had been fully co-operative.

That set in motion the FBI inquiry that led to the August raid of the Mar-a-Lago estate and the discovery of more than 100 additional documents.

In the days after the Mar-a-Lago raid, Mr Trump accused the FBI and the Justice Department of pursuing a politically motivated investigation in an effort to prevent him from running for the White House again (a campaign he would subsequently launch in November).

Mr Biden, for his part, said Mr Trump’s handling was “totally irresponsible”.

Now that the president himself is being accused of mishandling classified information, Mr Trump has quickly gone on the offensive.

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?” he posted on his social media site.

Mr Biden has said that he was “surprised” there were sensitive documents at his former office and that he is co-operating fully with the review.

After the second find he was defensive under questioning.

When a reporter asked him why classified documents were kept alongside his prized Corvette, Mr Biden replied: “My Corvette is in a locked garage. OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”

He added: “People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously. I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review.”