Joe Biden’s mouth meets his foot on what seems like a daily basis, and this recent classified documents scandal is no exception, as an old video has resurfaced showing Biden claiming that he had “no access” to classified information wasn’t really all that far away. In fact, it was just down the street in DC at his think tank, the Biden Center. Here’s that video:
In 2018, Joe Biden — while in his private office where classified documents were just found — said “I don’t have access to classified information anymore” pic.twitter.com/NoC9OihcKk
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 10, 2023
As you can hear in the clip, Biden, speaking to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, said that he didn’t have “access to classified information anymore,” with the narration of the video saying:
“In 2018, Joe Biden addressed his access to classified information in an interview with me. This was in the context of Russia’s interference in US elections and it was in that office, the Penn Biden Center. ‘I don’t have access to classified information anymore. I don’t get briefed every morning by the agency, as I did for eight years.'”
So Biden said, while in the office in which his classified documents were squirreled away, that he didn’t have any more access to classified information. All he had to do was walk down the hall (or somewhere else in the building), and crack open whatever file cabinet they were kept in.
President Biden, for his part, has denied knowing about the documents or what information they contain. When speaking alongside Mexican Presiden Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he said:
Well, let me get rid of the easy one first. People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.
When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me — a secure office in the Capitol, when I — the four years after being Vice President, I was a professor at Penn.
They found some documents in a box — you know, a locked cabinet, or at least a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box. And they did what they should have done: They immediately called the Archives — immediately called the Archives, turned them over to the Archives. And I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.
But I don’t know what’s in the documents. I’ve — my lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes — they’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives. And we’re cooperating fully — cooperating fully with the review, and — which I hope will be finished soon, and will be more detail at that time.
But while Biden and his lawyers supposedly don’t know what was in the documents and didn’t review them, news agencies have found out what’s in them. CNN, reporting on that, said “the classified documents are US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a separate source familiar with the matter.”
So Biden might not have had access to daily intelligence briefings, but, contrary to what he said, he did still have access to classified information and it was kept at the Biden Center.