Making lemonade out of the classified documents flap. Update reflecting Pence's equal mia culpa

UpdateL 1 25 2023  More evidence there needs to be a better system for keeping track of classified documents.  Such documents have now been found in Mike Pence's home and he reacted much like Biden did, though we do not know yet if there will be the drip drip release fumble that Biden's team had. The Pence discovery has all kinds of irony...first, also to make the comparison of his handling it, as Biden has had to attempt, with Trump's obstruction of justice in lies and hiding the evidence, and second, to wonder if the DOJ will also appoint a special counsel for his case. In any case, this only makes the case that there has been sloppy administration of the handling of documents in multi administrations.  If Pence can assert evidence of a lack of intent, to take the documents home by accident, so can Biden.  Once again, Pence's actions saved Biden, first denying the January 6 insurrectionists, and now, second,  this puts Biden in a better position. It makes MAGA  GOP harder to wag their tongues in mock horror at how equivalent Trump's actions were to Biden's and now Pence's.  In any case, my original posting below is still very relevant: fix the handling of classified documents in the White House.  It is a national security imperative.

No president is above the law and let the special counsel investigators of both Trump and Biden classified document handling mishaps do their jobs. This may also be a teaching/learning moment, not only about the rule of law but about the need to reform classified document handling. There may be a way to make sure this does not happen again.  That is how lemonade could be made from these bitter lemons. There is also a national security imperative to take action in how classified documents are handled. The whole world now knows that there is sloppy national security document handling, and it could be a temptation for a bad foreign actor to snag some low-hanging espionage fruit.   

My nagging question is, how did the archives know the documents were missing in order to demand Trump return them? How did it happen the archives did not know there were documents missing after Biden left the Vice Presidency? Hopefully, the answer will emerge in the investigations. It may not be an issue of behind-the-scenes subterfuge or differential treatment. If the GOP had known about the finding of those docs before the midterm elections, we would have heard about it then...to say the least. If Biden had an inkling there were such documents in his home, he was a seasoned enough politician not to wonder out loud how it could've happened when he criticized Trump. There may be some administrative process that changed between the end of the Obama administration and the Trump era. I am waiting to see if there were some changes in White House document handling in the time between the transitions. One possibility that should have been done, if it not was done, would be a highly security-cleared staffer giving every incoming document a serial number which would allow check-offs by the archives to see what was missing later. If the reconciliation showed some missing check-offs, there is a clue someone else has it.

With the House GOP bent on punishing the FBI as revenge for Mar-A-Lago and other assumed politically motivated excesses, it would be a miracle if any constructive reform of classified document management would result. Solving the problem would require admitting there was a problem. That does not seem to be the purpose of GOP-dominated House select committees or other committees under which the responsibility should fall.