President Joe Biden's history of walking off with classified documents has put greater scrutiny on his transition to President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump and Biden have each been accused of mishandling classified documents when they left office previously, which they're hoping to avoid this time around.
"The president is committed to making sure this transition is effective and efficient, and he's doing that because this is the norm," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. "But also because this is the right thing to do for the American people."It's a goal that has eluded both presidents in the past.
Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was raided in August of 2022 as FBI agents searched for documents stored there that dated to the first Trump administration. The next month, Biden wondered aloud "how ... anyone could be that irresponsible" as to leave classified documents in a storage room of their house.
However, just weeks later, classified documents from the Obama-Biden administration were found in Biden's private office, and a special counsel report later revealed that Biden had been caught on tape acknowledging he had classified documents in his home as early as 2017.
Administration officials are hoping for better outcomes this time around, even as frustration emanates from each side of the aisle. Bradley Moss, a national security attorney who has been critical of Trump's post-presidency storage of documents at Mar-a-Lago, said the lack of consequences Trump has faced leaves little incentive for Biden to be cooperative.
Biden could "straight up walk out of the White House with whatever classified documents he wants, give everyone the middle finger while chanting 'Presidential Records Act,' and claim immunity," Moss told the Washington Examiner. "Of course, no one expects President Biden to do anything like that. The expectation is that his team is being particularly careful to avoid any inadvertent removal of classified records over the next months."