The FBI's botched handling of Biden classified doc problem

 NY Post:

...

At every stage, the FBI has adopted an approach that would compromise or complicate any criminal charge.

The FBI left the home untouched for over three months after classified documents were found in Biden’s former office in DC. While it was recently learned that the FBI did go to that office a couple weeks later, it reportedly elected to have personal counsel for the president conduct searches on the residences. Biden then spent weeks traveling to these residences after the FBI waited to search the premises.

The private searches clearly went through these documents and moved (and potentially organized) material. Despite being given the opportunity to conduct and record the initial searches, the FBI will now have to rely on the accounts of private counsel on how these documents were originally left, including any visible classification markings.

For example, to go through the papers, counsel had to handle them, sort them, and stack or box them. That means that the original conditions are lost in determining, for example, if anyone in the vicinity could have seen a telltale bordered classified jacket or whether a classified document was partially or fully outside of a jacket.

The FBI allowed uncleared private counsel to tread all over these scenes, creating a nightmare of chain of custody.

It then waited weeks to send its own agents to places like Rehoboth Beach as counsel and the Bidens frequented the property.

It is also not clear how the FBI conducted these searches. Reports recently indicated that Biden included classified information in notebooks that were seized in earlier searches. If true, that is a nightmare for investigators because it would require agents to do more than simply look for classified documents with markings at the beginning of paragraphs and tops of pages. They would have to actually read material to determine if Biden incorporated classified material.
...

With Biden, the FBI did not know where documents might be located. The findings overlap with residential and office space used by Biden over the years. Moreover, it was reportedly told that it could search and seize any documents. It did not use that opportunity to search all of these locations, even after counsel erroneously stated that no more classified material was present at these locations.

The FBI is moving no more aggressively with other possible areas containing classified material. The FBI still has not reportedly searched the massive trove of Biden documents being stored at the University of Delaware. Reports indicate that Biden removed classified material as a senator and these records cover that period. Looking for a few documents in Rehoboth Beach and not the university (roughly 80 miles away) with a truckload of documents is like driving past the ocean to go fishing in a wading pool.
...

The FBI appears to have a chain of custody problems galore in the Biden investigation.  The case may boil down to his sloppy handling of classified documents. Will Biden claim "Democrat privilege" for his handling of classified documents kept in his garage with access to Hunter Biden?

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