‘Do everything that Trump did not’

By Sam Stein, Lauren Egan and Eli Stokols

Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.  

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Everyone agrees President JOE BIDEN stepped in it with his handling of classified documents found in an office he had in D.C. and his home in Wilmington.

The question is: just how much shit did he step in, legally and politically?

To answer that, we called up MARK ZAID, a prominent national security attorney who has extensive experience dealing with claims around mishandling classified information. Below is an edited version of our talk.

What is your Occam’s Razor explanation for what happened here? 

What happened is what I see happen fairly often. Folks pack up their offices after they leave federal employment and mistakenly take classified documents with them. 

The laymen perception though is different. People look at this and wonder: How could you possibly commingle classified materials? They’re clearly marked.

It should be something that is completely avoidable. But it is very easy for documents to be packed up among other documents and commingled so that classified information is mistakenly grabbed with unclassified information.

Had you been in the White House on Nov. 2, the day the first batch of documents was discovered, what steps would you have taken? 

I would not have revealed it at the time out of concern of influencing, unfairly and unduly, the elections. Where I would have differed and where I believe the Biden administration is committing unforced errors was that, when the White House acknowledged there were documents found on Nov. 2, they did not reveal the Dec. 20th find over at his Delaware residence. That was a complete PR political blunder. 

Are they just not revealing enough in real time? 

I don’t know what I don’t know. But assuming that this is strictly irresponsibility on the part of some third party staffer and Biden never even knew about it, then I would have answered more basic questions. 

Like what? 

What else is in these boxes? What else is surrounding it? Do a better explanation for why the private lawyers and not the government lawyers are looking through the boxes. The notion that they found the document in the adjacent room and that is the only amount of detail I have heard, why? What does that mean? What the hell is the adjacent room? 

Do we really care about the quality of the room? Isn’t the bigger question: What’s in the documents? 

I’m not concerned about any of these blunders with respect to legal liability. The blunder pertains to public perception and undermining your credibility.

Going forward, what would you do if you were advising the White House?

I would designate a non-White House individual, a lawyer with experience in handling classified information and investigations, to be the specific spokesperson to address any issues related to this matter. Having the White House comms staff doing it only causes further problems.

Would you advise Biden to just expeditiously sit down with the Special Counsel? 

Uh, yeah. They need to do everything that [DONALD] TRUMP did not. 

Wait. Have you been approached by the White House for guidance?

I have not. I have not been approached by Trump or by Biden. 

Does it surprise you that they didn’t look for materials after the Trump matter broke? 

It doesn’t surprise me but it disappoints me that they didn’t have the foresight to think that far ahead. Accidents happen and everyone thinks: ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have done that.’

Do you think Barack Obama has been searching through his garage the last couple weeks for classified files?

If they were smart they’d be doing that. I’m surprised and disappointed, I suppose, at any sitting president who, when what was occurring with former President Trump, didn’t get spurred to check. 

Is the double standard between Trump and Biden or between Biden and, say, a mid level staffer who may have unknowingly taken classified papers with him? How much trouble would that person be in right now? 

I am certainly not going to deny a double standard exists. I argue it all the time. But it’s not black and white. I’ve had senior government officials treated worse than lower government officials. It really depends on the facts of the case. So, yes, the process is fraught with inconsistencies and arbitrariness. But it really depends on so many factors that we can’t look at it in a vacuum. And let’s be realistic, a former vice president or president is always going to be treated differently. It’s not a fair comparison to make because there are so many issues around taking action against that individual. 

MESSAGE US —Are you someone who has been approached by the White House for guidance on Biden’s document drama? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.

This one is from Allie. Which president had surgery to remove a cancerous polyp in his large intestine at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland?

(Answer at the bottom.)

“HE DOESN’T WORK HERE ANYMORE”: We told you Tuesday that The Daily Show’s ROY WOOD JR. was on campus filming the White House visit by the Golden State Warriors. And boy did the administration play ball, giving Wood time with Biden himself in the Diplomatic Room. When asked by Wood why the Dubs didn’t attend a White House celebration after winning titles in 2017 and 2018, Biden had an answer ready.

“You’d have to ask the other guy,” he said, struggling to hold back a smirk. “But he doesn’t work here any more.”

EIGHTH AVENUE HEARTACHE: There is a glimmer of optimism within the New York Times guild after Wednesday’s contract talks with management, during which the newsroom came down slightly on its demand for pay increases and accepted the company’s position on pension plans, which will remain as they are. But the issue of returning to the office continues to be extremely contentious.

The guild said its negotiators asked management if its demand for staff to return to the newsroom five days a week was driven by tax exemptions, found in public records. Those exemptions are due to net the company $10.75 million over the next seven years — but only if the newsroom is fully staffed. The NYT’s negotiators, after telling the guild in December there was no financial motivation behind its RTO position, “said they were not familiar with these subsidies and would need more time to research the issue and address our questions.” Oof.

BYEEEE: CECILIA VEGA, ABC’s chief White House correspondent, is leaving the network and heading to CBS to be a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” She’ll begin her new job in the spring. WaPo’s JEREMY BARR has more details on the move.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: Some of Biden's closest aides and allies perceive his classified document drama to be “‘DC elite’ making ‘DC noise,’” CNN’s EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE reports. “They argue that the attention to these documents may prove to be only the latest passing obsession, and that many of the questions they’re facing are from journalists and politicians who aren’t accepting that Biden is ‘honoring his promise to a T by upholding the rule of law and respecting DOJ’s process,’ according to a Biden adviser.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by WaPo’s TIMOTHY PUKO about how Biden’s climate goals are facing some pretty big hurdles: “The delays, which affect everything from the vehicles Americans drive to the power plants that light their homes, are raising concerns on whether the Biden administration can finalize enduring actions on climate before the end of the president’s first term. … A convergence of obstacles is contributing to the delays, including staff shortages and concerns that federal courts could reverse any ambitious climate rules.”

DALTON’S DEBUT: Principal deputy press secretary OLIVIA DALTON on Thursday held her first gaggle with reporters while traveling to California with the president. Asked whether her role was to speak on behalf of Biden’s interests, or to provide accurate information to the public, Dalton said the president’s “first priority is to deliver for the American people, and certainly I see myself as being in service of that goal.”

Dalton, who started in her job in August, has yet to appear at the podium and hadn’t been the lead press staffer on a presidential trip until Thursday. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, who had the same role as Dalton when she served under her predecessor JEN PSAKI, held her first briefing after four months on that job. By that point, she also had held five gaggles aboard Air Force One.

Dalton’s debut coincides with rising tensions in the briefing room, the focus of OLIVER DARCY’s CNN media newsletter Wednesday evening. The White House press corps, he wrote, has “grown exasperated with Jean-Pierre and does not believe she is well equipped to handle their inquiries.”

YELLEN GOES TO AFRICA: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN is starting her trip to Africa with a clear message to the continent: America is here to help, Axios’ HANS NICHOLS reports. “The United States is all in on Africa, and all in with Africa,” Yellen will say in a speech she’ll give in Dakar, Senegal. The comments are a rebuttal to China’s recent efforts to bolster its influence in the region by investing in infrastructure, plans the administration hopes to counteroffer.

MEANWHILE, AT HOME… Yellen said Thursday that the government has reached its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit and has begun using “extraordinary measures” to pay its bills, our ZACHARY WARMBRODT reports. (Separately, Zachary and VICTORIA GUIDA break down in a write up here what that all means and what’s to come.)

PERSONNEL MOVES: JOSH HSU, former counsel to Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, will join the law firm Jenner & Block in March. Hsu, who also worked on Harris’ presidential campaign and the Biden-Harris transition team, left the White House on Jan. 5 after two years there.

MEET THE WELCOME CORPS: Private U.S. citizens will be able to directly sponsor refugees entering the U.S. through a new program called the “Welcome Corps,” our KELLY GARRITY reports. The program allows groups of five or more Americans to help refugees with everything from finances to finding a place to live upon their U.S. entry. The State Department often relies on non profit organizations for similar help.

CALLING ON THE ADMINISTRATION: A coalition of 292 advocacy groups sent a letter to the Biden administration urging for a reversal of an immigration policy that would deem some asylum seekers to be ineligible for entry, The Hill’s RAFAEL BERNAL reports. “Your administration’s announcement of plans to establish a presumption of asylum ineligibility for individuals who do not use ‘established pathways to lawful migration’ and do not apply for protection in countries of transit advances the agenda of the Trump administration, which repeatedly sought to impose similar asylum bans,” the groups wrote.

Is the Joke on Joe Biden? (Peter Funt for WSJ)

America Hit Its Debt Limit, Setting Up Bitter Fiscal Fight (NYT’s Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport)

By the numbers: President Biden at the two-year mark (AP’s Aamer Madhani)

In 1985, RONALD REAGAN had surgery to “remove a cancerous polyp in his large intestine. Doctors also removed 2 feet of Reagan’s lower intestine,” according to our write up from 2010. “After the surgery, Reagan quipped, ‘Well, I’m glad that’s all out.’”

A CALL OUT — Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.

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Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Allie Bice @alliebice

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