On January 12, 2022 Attorney General Merrick Garland announced at a press briefing at the Department of Justice in Washington that he appointed a special counsel to investigate President Biden after the discovery of classified government records at the President’s private home and office. The discovery is a second discovery with more discoveries likely on their way.

The first batch of undisclosed classified documents found on November 2nd, 2022—one week before the November midterm congressional elections—was not revealed until well after the primaries. Despite numerous requests by reporters, journalists or investigators, the White House has refused to respond to requests for clarification regarding the seemingly intentional delays in disclosure of the fact. 

In his announcement, Garland tapped former federal prosecutor Robert Hur to serve as special counsel in the investigation. Hur previously served as the U.S. Attorney for Maryland from 2018 through 2021 after being nominated by Donald Trump to the post. 

The announcement came with a timeline describing a registry of different actions regarding the discovery of the two batches of documents. 

• Nov. 4: The National Archives inspector-general contacts a prosecutor at the Justice Department to say documents bearing classification markings were found at the Biden office.

• Nov. 9: In regards to the discovery, the FBI begins a ‘damage’ assessment

• Nov. 14: Garland assigns Chicago U.S. Attorney John Lausch Jr., a Trump appointee, to conduct an initial investigation 

• Dec. 20: Biden’s personal counsel informs Lausch about documents found in Biden’s garage (i.e., an insecure location)

• Jan. 5: Lausch briefs Garland on the results, advising a special counsel be appointed

• Jan. 9: The White House reveals that an unspecified number of classified documents found Nov. 2 in a locked closet at Biden’s former office
• Jan. 10: Biden states he is “surprised” documents were found, claiming not to have known anything 

• Jan. 12: The White House reveals a second set of classified documents was found in garage at Biden’s home in Wilmington.

Under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives when an administration ends. Presidents or their vice presidents are therefore required to return government records to the National Records and Archives Administration immediately after their term in office expires.  It is clear that Biden violated the Presidential Records Act.

The appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Biden is a sign of the depth to which Washington as the centre of American democracy is beginning to plunge. Notwithstanding the obviously partisan character of the accusations against Biden for breaking the law, all of which are mirrored in those against former President Donald J Trump, whose situation differs substantially from Biden’s, the appointment of special counsel indicates—without a doubt—a continuity of crime from one presidency to the next successively from the Obama, through the Trump, to the Biden administration. 

It is clear that the presidency as one of the branches of the government enshrined within the system of checks and balances in the United States Constitution is in a deep state of irrevocable crisis following the appointment of not just special counsel Hur against Biden but special counsel Smith against Trump.

The current investigations of the Presidents, which are far in a way different from the nefarious improprieties of Washington’s primary focus on sexual misconduct, are centered on obviously criminal activity, whose factual basis is established already by virtue of the fact that the troves of documents have been “discovered” in the private residences of the Presidents. These discoveries do not involve a cigar or the “oral office” but a fundamentally different transgression regarding retention, control, or access over “Secret Compartmental Information,” the allegedly highest level of security on confidential information.  

In response to the discovery of the first trove of documents, Biden said he was “surprised to learn” that classified documents were found at his former office, as though he had no idea. Judging by Biden’s initial response to the first trove, the fact that Biden’s legal team found a second trove at his house should come as absolutely no surprise at all. 

Given the fact that Biden did not voluntarily release information regarding the discovery of the documents until well after the November midterm congressional election suggests that there is more than meets the eye in terms of the differences between the two cases. Although the differences certainly outweigh the similarities, where Biden— a duly elected President, while Trump—the leader of the botched fascistic January 6th coup d’etat on the Capitol, present two entirely different political realities, the fact that Trump initially refused to turn over his more than 100 documents to the National Archives or lied to the FBI does not eliminate the fact that Biden’s failure to disclose his own unreturned documents twice, is as much an act of crime as it is a reflection of his own duplicity. 

The fact that Biden who publicly admonished Donald J Trump for his failure to produced documents flies in the face of the discovery. It further underscores the incestuous hypocrisy that riles throughout the entirety of Washington, from one end of the political spectrum to the other, from Republican to Democrat or vice versus. 

It indicates just how insidious the two party system truly is. United in enmity against the working class, the two party system dissolves primarily into nothing more than merely a tactical difference over how to quash this or that aspiration of the working class. The bipartisan support for Biden’s legislation against railroad workers shortly before Christmas last year sailed through both houses of Congress by being signed into law by Biden. The House voted 290 to 137 to approve the legislation. The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 15.

The bipartisan legislation imposed a labor agreement upon workers the four major rail road unions  rejected under immense pressure from workers who threatened to strike against the agreement’s lack of paid sick leave. 

“It was tough for me but it was the right thing to do at the moment — save jobs, to protect millions of working families from harm and disruption and to keep supply chains stable around the holidays,” Biden said, adding the deal avoided “an economic catastrophe.” But his deal did nothing but extend, compound, or exacerbate the economic catastrophe for workers. 

Although the Biden documents have become another weapon in the political warfare in Washington, which is escalating significantly with unprecedented speed throughout the highest levels of American bourgeois democracy, the political significance of the takeover of the House of Representatives by the Republican Party, which is submitting bills for Biden’s impeachment in response to his son’s purchase of illustriously well paid Ukrainian prostitutes (an unbelievably inconsequential matter of any politic) by a narrow majority of 222 to 212 (the same margin that the Democrats held during the first two years of Biden’s term), underscores just how removed from working people the sudden shift in political power from Democrat to Republic truly is.

As an author from the World Socialist Website notes, “The battle over state secrets evades the fundamental democratic issues posed by Trump’s attempted coup of January 6, 2021.” 

The fact that Biden may be guilty of a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 does nothing but intensify the danger of the January 6th coup d’etat blowing wind into the sails of an already unparalleled political maelstrom that Biden is entirely incapable of weathering, as his own culpability now indicates. 

As the author from the World Socialist Website continues, “For more than 19 months, the Biden administration sought to downplay the danger of fascist dictatorship posed by the nearly successful attempt by Trump, backed by significant sections of the military, the police and the intelligence establishment and utilizing a mob of fascist paramilitary supporters, to overthrow the 2020 election and retain power as president-dictator.”

The appointment of a second Special Counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland does not alleviate any of the primary causes of the political maelstrom. consequently, it calls into question his own culpability. If Biden, who is uncharacteristically forgetful not just about his own offices but his own home, may have revealed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, then his forgetfulness may not serve in lieu of Garland’s refusal to resign after the revelation. 

During the 19 months in which the Biden administration sought to downplay the danger of fascist dictatorship, Biden sought to cover up his culpability with a similar silence, a silence on his own trappings no less dangerous than on others.

The unprecedented battle within Washington’s ruling class raging through the different branches of Washington’s government over the documents is so expansive, so far reaching in its implications, so destructive that one can hardly imagine anything for comparison in the Country’s history. 

It is clear that neither President, whoever it may be or however tainted or to what degree one may be more tainted than the other, neither political party represent the interests of workers. Working people cannot rely upon the Democratic Party or its President, the Republican Party or its narrow majority in the House to guarantee a genuine struggle against the threat of fascism.

The working class must reject the two party political system. It must declare its independence from both the Presidents or their parties. It  must establish its own leadership for there is no more powerful political force in the United States than its working people.