The White House is currently working feverishly to catch up to the controversy surrounding sensitive documents, as well as to thwart an effort by Republicans to corner Vice President Joe Biden and exonerate former President Donald Trump from responsibility in his own hidden records scandal.
A misfiring communications plan that intensified the impact of the discovery of vice presidential records in Biden’s home in Delaware and his former office was the focus of the efforts of Biden’s advisers over the course of the weekend as they attempted to restore order to the situation.
In spite of this, they are currently the subject of an investigation by a special counsel, which means that they could be subjected to new searches, which could result in the politically explosive discovery of additional documents while a newly elected Republican majority in the House stirs up the storm. In the meantime, Biden is showing signs of increasing exasperation at his predicament.
As the president battles to get a handle on the situation, the stakes could not possibly be much greater for him personally. He had wanted to utilize a string of beneficial events, including a mild cooling of inflation, as a launchpad for a reelection bid, which he is expected to declare in the near future; but, the papers scandal has drowned out these positive developments in the short term. Any hope of drawing a clear distinction between Biden’s cooperation with the authorities and Trump’s months of resistance and obfuscation over his haul of hundreds of pages of classified material was dashed by the inept public relations strategy employed by the White House in regard to approximately 20 documents. This strategy caused the White House to look foolish.
Now that Biden, like Trump, is the subject of an investigation by a special counsel, the White House is under intense pressure to prevent the classic scenario in which one minor scandal sets off tributary investigations that leak into other areas and could ultimately consume the presidency of Joe Biden.
The hopes of the president that this is only a hiccup in the early part of 2023 rest on the answers to three important questions that are currently being faced by an overloaded White House that has found it impossible to provide solid answers.
Existing further records just waiting to be found that, if they were, would amplify the political repercussions of the controversy.
Will there be additional searches conducted as a result of the discovery of sets of documents in a previous office used by Biden after he left his position as vice president as well as at his home?
Who would carry out any searches of this kind? Who are Biden’s attorneys? Or, will the FBI also be involved, considering that a special counsel was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last week in order to prevent the impression of political interference?
Why has it taken so long to investigate other potential sites in which vice presidential papers, including potentially classified files, could be found? The initial set of documents was discovered in November; why has it taken so long to search other such locations? According to a source close to the inquiry who spoke with CNN’s Evan Perez, the rate of searches conducted by Biden’s team caused worry at the US attorney’s office in Chicago, which was the office that initially looked into the problem.
How quickly and successfully can House Republicans utilize this story to give gasoline to one of their aims, which is the creation of a narrative of corruption and shadiness surrounding Biden’s family and his son Hunter’s business interests?
Will the slow-moving White House communications strategy be able to turn the obvious hypocrisy of the GOP, which didn’t care about Trump’s larger document haul, into a larger political story that paints the House majority as extremist before the 2024 election?
These questions could help determine whether this is just another scandal in Washington that voters are uninterested in because it does not necessarily correspond with their top priorities, or whether the response creates a wider impression of incompetence and chaos that could do long-term damage to the reputation of the government.