Joe Biden reportedly played an integral role in then-President Jimmy Carter withdrawing his selection to lead the CIA during the late 1970s — over the apparent mishandling of classified documents.
In 1977, the first full year of Carter's tenure as commander-in-chief, American lawyer Ted Sorensen never got past the Senate confirmation process, largely stemming from his question-and-answer session with Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware.
According to Fox News, Sorensen admitted to taking boxes of classified records home with him after leaving the White House in 1964 — after working for the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson — as a means of using certain materials for a Kennedy biography.
Around that time, Democrat Biden aligned with Senate Republicans to block Sorensen from being confirmed by the chamber.
Biden also suggested Sorensen may have violated the Espionage Act of 1917, according to Fox News.
During the Senate confirmation hearing, Biden seemingly mocked Sorensen for "carelessly" ignoring the laws pertaining to possessing classified materials.
"If [Sorenson] did so, can he now bring the activities of the intelligence community within the strict limits of the law?" Biden rhetorically asked then. "We will expect that in the future of intelligence agencies. If that is to be the case, then we must hold the director ... accountable as well."
Shortly after being grilled on Capitol Hill, Sorensen didn't contest Carter's withdrawn nomination.
However, according to a Washington Post report from 1977, the embattled former White House staffer noted his "handling of classified information was at all times in accordance with the then-existing laws, regulations and practices."
Fast forward to the present: As the current president, Biden has expressed no public remorse for batches of classified materials being discovered either at his Washington, D.C., office (the Penn Biden Center) or his Delaware home — from a time when Biden was vice president, a position that holds no powers of declassifying top-secret government documents.
And as Newsmax chronicled Thursday, some Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about the information from a recent Washington Post report, suggesting the White House and DOJ had previously agreed to obscure President Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents from public view — at least before CBS News contacted the White House about the first batch of improperly stored sensitive documents.
The White House, which has been accused of shielding the press from access to DOJ representatives, maintains that it will continue to cooperate with federal agencies, including Attorney General Merrick Garland's special counsel appointment Robert Hur.
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