当国家档案馆官员找到总统的律师时乔·拜登2022年秋天，当试图查阅他仍然拥有的政府记录时——他们得知其中一些可能包含机密信息——档案员似乎没有遇到什么阻力。
“就保管任何文件而言，是的，我们准备为你提供任何你需要的途径，以实现奈良保管任何看起来合适的材料，”当时曾担任总统私人律师的帕特里克·摩尔写道。
2022年11月，拜登的律师和国家档案馆之间的其他通信也包括同样的合作情绪:摩尔反复使用“在你方便的时候”和“我可以在任何时候用手机联系到我”等表达方式。
穆尔协助搜查位于华盛顿特区的佩恩·拜登国家档案馆工作人员。他甚至帮助他们确保进入和停放在该设施。
摩尔在2022年11月8日给国家档案馆官员的一封电子邮件中写道:“我们可以在明天上午9点过后到下午4点左右方便地进入佩恩·拜登中心(尽管如果需要，我们可能会要求该中心在那个时间之后提供便利——这些只是最初通知我的时间)。”。"如果星期三更合适，我们也可以促成."
电子邮件显示，同一天，摩尔帮助协调将另外九个箱子从他的波士顿律师事务所运到约翰·肯尼迪总统图书馆保管。
这些信息和其他信息是周一出现的新一批记录的一部分，这些记录与政府最早确定拜登在2017年离开副总统职位时是否不当保留了机密信息的努力有关。
2023年11月14日，华盛顿，美国总统乔·拜登在白宫南礼堂发表气候变化演讲。
苏珊·沃尔什/美联社
美国国家档案馆的努力后来演变成由前美国检察官罗伯特·胡尔(Robert Hur)领导的特别顾问调查，该调查仍在进行中。美国广播公司新闻以前报告过Hur在调查中采访了多达100名证人，包括总统拜登和国务卿安东尼·布林肯。
新公布的记录进一步表明，拜登团队处理档案员询问的方式与其前任唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)形成鲜明对比，后者据称拒绝政府检索可能包括严格保密的国家机密的文件。
联邦检察官指控特朗普故意隐瞒他知道对国家档案馆和后来的联邦调查局的调查人员保密的记录。特别顾问杰克·史密斯在6月份提交了一份37项指控与此事有关的指控，特朗普对此表示不服罪。
特朗普试图将他的情况与拜登的情况联系起来，试图将他们的行为等同起来，并将他的起诉称为司法系统不恰当地针对共和党人的结果。
但美国国家档案馆周一公布的记录增加了越来越多的证据，表明前总统和现任总统以完全不同的方式处理政府外联活动。
前司法部发言人莎拉·伊斯古尔(Sarah Isgur)表示，特朗普和拜登的法律状况之间的“一个巨大差异”与他们合作的差异有关。
“如果特朗普在Mar-a-Lago发现这些文件后简单地归还这些文件，就不会有机密文件调查，”现在是美国广播公司新闻撰稿人的Isgur说。
“拜登的团队显然希望合作将加强他们的辩护，这一切都是无意的，”伊斯古尔说。“但对特朗普来说，在这一点上，全面反击是他政治和法律战略的一部分。一年前，合作在法律上可能是明智的，但此时此刻，蛋糕已经烤好了。”
政府检索特朗普持有的文件的努力始于2022年初，当时国家档案馆的官员说他们已经找到了找回15个盒子特朗普在离开白宫后“不当”带到他的Mar-a-Lago庄园的总统记录。
根据特别顾问提交的起诉书，据称前总统拒绝归还一些额外的档案箱，据称至少有一次要求工作人员不要在Mar-a-Lago寻找任何机密文件。
特朗普随后被传唤归还当局称他仍然拥有的其他文件，但检察官表示，他拒绝了这些提议。
2022年6月，联邦特工访问了Mar-a-Lago，以寻找更多材料，此后检察官表示，特朗普的律师签署了一项声明证明Mar-a-Lago的所有机密文件都已移交给联邦调查人员。
两个月后，联邦调查局特工搜查了南佛罗里达的房产并发现另外100多份带有机密标记的文件尚未移交。
'Whatever access you need': How Biden handled early days of classified documents probe
When National Archives officials approached attorneys for PresidentJoe Bidenin the fall of 2022 seeking access to government records he still had in his possession -- some of which, they had learned, might contain classified information -- the archivists appeared to face little resistance.
"In terms of taking custody to any papers, yes, we are prepared to facilitate whatever access you need to accomplish NARA taking custody of whatever materials it seems appropriate," wrote Patrick Moore, a onetime personal attorney for the president, at the time.
Other correspondence between Biden's lawyers and the National Archives in November 2022 includes equally cooperative sentiments: Moore repeatedly used expressions such as "at your convenience," and "I can be reached any time on my cell."
Moorefacilitated a searchof the Washington, D.C.-based Penn Biden Center for National Archives staff, according to emails. He even helped them secure entry and parking at the facility.
"We can have access to the Penn Biden Center at your convenience tomorrow from just after 9 am through 4 pm or so (though we may ask the Center to facilitate access beyond that time if needed -- these were just the times initially communicated to me)," Moore wrote in a Nov. 8, 2022, email to National Archives officials. "If Wednesday is preferred, we can facilitate that, too."
The same day, emails show, Moore helped coordinate the transportation of nine additional boxes from his Boston law office to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for safekeeping.
Those messages and others emerged Monday as part of a new batch of records related to the government's earliest efforts to determine whether Biden had inappropriately retained classified information when he left the vice presidency in 2017.
The National Archives' efforts later evolved into a special counsel investigation led by former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, which remains ongoing. ABC Newspreviously reportedthat Hur has interviewed as many as 100 witnesses in the probe, including President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The newly released records further demonstrate the contrast in how Biden's team handled inquiries from the archivists compared to his predecessor, Donald Trump, who allegedly resisted government efforts to retrieve documents that could include closely guarded national secrets.
Federal prosecutors have accused Trump of deliberately withholding records he knew to be classified from investigators with the National Archives and later the FBI. Special counsel Jack Smith in June filed a37-count indictmentagainst Trump related to the matter, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Trump has sought to link his circumstances to Biden's by trying to draw an equivalence between their conduct and calling his prosecution the result of a justice system improperly targeting Republicans.
But the records released Monday by the National Archives add to a growing body of evidence showing that the former president and the current president handled government outreach in completely different manners.
Sarah Isgur, a former Department of Justice spokesperson, said "one big difference" between Trump's and Biden's legal situation has to do with the discrepancy in their cooperation.
"There would be no classified documents probe if Trump had simply given back the documents after they were discovered at Mar-a-Lago," said Isgur, now an ABC News contributor.
"Biden's team clearly hopes cooperation will bolster their defense that this was all inadvertent," Isgur said. "But for Trump, it's part of his political and legal strategy at this point to fight back on all fronts. Cooperation may have been legally wise a year ago, but at this point, the cake is baked."
The government's efforts to retrieve the documents held by Trump began in early 2022 when officials with the National Archives said they hadretrieved 15 boxesof presidential records that Trump had "improperly" taken to his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the White House.
The former president had allegedly refused to give back some additional boxes to the Archives, according to an indictment filed by the special counsel, and at least on one occasion allegedly asked staff to not look for any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump was then subpoenaed for the return of additional documents authorities said he still possessed, but prosecutors say that he rebuffed those overtures.
In June 2022, federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago to search for additional materials, after which prosecutors said an attorney for Trumpsigned a statement attesting that all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago had been turned over to federal investigators.
Two months later, FBI agentsraided the South Florida estateand found more than 100 additional documents with classified markings that had not been turned over.
