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Veteran Woman Senator Is 3rd in Line for President

On January 3, while Republicans in the House of Representatives were deadlocked over electing a speaker of the house, Democratic Senator Patty Murray was briefly second in line to the U.S. presidency.

That’s because the longtime Democratic senator from Washington state made history when she became the first woman to serve as Senate president pro tempore, a largely ceremonial role that will see Murray filling in as head of the Senate whenever Vice President Kamala Harris is absent. In Latin, “pro tempore” means “for the time being.”

“The significance of this moment is certainly not lost on me,” Murray, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, said in a statement. “As the first woman to serve as President Pro Tempore, I will be the first woman to sign the bills we send to President Biden’s desk for his signature and to be designated to preside over the Senate in the absence of the Vice President. It’s a responsibility I am deeply honored to take on for my country and for Washington state.”

Murray’s colleagues elected her to the position, which is traditionally based on seniority. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the most senior member of the majority party, did not seek the job. Murray’s rise to the leadership position that puts her third in line to the presidency took decades, underscoring how long the road to progress can be.

“It’s a big deal, and it’s a historic moment, and it’s one that’s been very long in coming,” says Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “That’s not surprising, because the Senate is an institution that doesn’t turn over very often. So, when it comes to positions of leadership, which are given by seniority … the pace of change is incredibly slow. But it’s still a huge moment.”

If the commander in chief cannot serve, the order of presidential succession is vice president, followed by speaker of the house and then president pro tempore of the Senate. In the last Congress, two women — Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — were the top two people in line for the presidency.

“It’s huge that we have women in these positions of leadership. What I would want to be clear about, though, is that does not mean we’re anywhere close to parity,” Sinzdak says. “We have to celebrate these accomplishments but still acknowledge that there’s work to be done to get closer to equal representation.”

There are now 25 women — one in four members — in the U.S. Senate. In the House of Representatives, fewer than one-third of the members are women. Having women in leadership positions upends traditional notions of who can and should be in those positions, Sinzdak says.

“As we see more and more women serving, it becomes clear women are just as able to serve in those positions as men are, and it normalizes women’s leadership. So, there’s definitely a role modeling effect,” she says. “And I think it also influences other women who may be considering running for office someday. It helps when you see people you can identify with serving in those positions.”
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A Side-by-Side Look at the Trump, Biden Classified Documents

The revelation that potentially classified materials were discovered at think tank offices formerly used by President Joe Biden has prompted questions on how the circumstance compares to the seizure last year of hundreds of documents marked as classified from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump.

A side-by-side look at the similarities and differences between the two situations:

How many classified documents are we talking about?

Biden: “A small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered on Nov. 2, 2022, in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington, as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices, according to Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president.

Biden kept an office at the Penn Center after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. It was affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and continued to operate independently of the Biden administration.

Trump: Roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top-secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021.

In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents, telling Justice Department officials they contained “a lot” of classified material. In August, FBI agents took about 33 boxes and containers of 11,000 documents from Mar-a-Lago, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office.

How quickly were the classified documents turned over?

Biden: His personal attorneys immediately alerted the White House counsel’s office, who notified NARA, which took custody of the documents the next day, Sauber said.

“Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” Sauber said.

Trump: A Trump representative told NARA in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago, nearly a year after Trump left office. Fifteen boxes of records containing some classified materials were transferred from Mar-Lago to NARA in January.

A few months later, investigators from the Justice Department and FBI visited Mar-a-Lago to get more information about classified materials taken to Florida. Federal officials also served a subpoena for some documents believed to be at the estate.

In August 2022, FBI agents conducting a search retrieved 33 boxes from Mar-a-Lago. The search came after lawyers for Trump provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.

Could either president face charges related to the discovery of the documents?

Biden: Despite the discovery of classified materials in a Biden office, there is no indication Biden himself was aware of the existence of the records before they were turned over.

The administration has also said that the records were turned over the same day they were discovered, without any intent to conceal. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness, or an intent to mishandle government secrets, in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.

But even if the Justice Department were to find the case prosecutable on the evidence, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office. Former special counsel Robert Mueller cited that guidance in deciding not to reach a conclusion on whether Trump should face charges as part of his investigation into coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Attorney General Merrick Garland asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch — one of the few U.S. attorneys to be held over from Trump’s administration — to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Trump: The former president possibly faces exposure for obstruction over the protracted battle to retrieve the documents themselves. And, since he’s no longer in office, he wouldn’t be afforded protections from possible prosecution that would apply to a sitting president.

In November, Garland appointed Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption inquiries, to lead investigations into Trump’s retention of classified documents, as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the January 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

What did the presidents have to say about the discovery of the documents?

Biden: Answering questions from journalists at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico on Tuesday, Biden said he was “surprised to learn” that the documents had been found at his think tank. He said he didn’t know what was in the material but takes classified documents “very seriously.”

He said his team acted appropriately by quickly turning the documents over.

“They did what they should have done,” Biden said. “They immediately called the Archives.”

In September, speaking of the situation with Trump, Biden told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the discovery of top-secret documents at Mar-a-Lago raised concerns that sensitive data was compromised and called it “irresponsible.”

Trump: Trump has claimed at times that he declassified the documents that he took with him — though he has provided no evidence of that. He said in a Fox News interview in September that a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it.”

The former president has called the Mar-a-Lago search an “unannounced raid” that was “not necessary or appropriate” and represented “dark times for our Nation.”

Of Biden, Trump weighed in Monday on his social media site, asking, “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?”

What are the political implications of the discovery of the documents?

Biden: While unlikely to affect the Justice Department’s decision-making with regard to charging Trump in his own case, Biden’s document disclosure could intensify skepticism among Republicans and others who are already critical that politics is the basis for probes of the former president.

There are also possible ramifications in a new, GOP-controlled Congress where Republicans are promising to launch widespread investigations of Biden’s administration.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the American public deserved to know earlier about the revelation of Biden’s classified documents. The Ohio Republican is among House Republicans pushing for the creation of a “select subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal government” within the Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of the documents found at the Penn Center.

Trump: In its immediate aftermath, Trump and his supporters seized on the Mar-a-Lago search as a partisan attack from Democrats who had long been desirous of removing him from office.

During his 2024 campaign launch in November, at the same club agents had searched months earlier, Trump referenced the probes against him, casting himself as “a victim” of wayward prosecutors and the “festering, rot and corruption of Washington.”
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Republicans Launch Inquiries Into Classified Documents Found at Pro-Biden Think Tank 

President Joe Biden said he was “surprised” to learn his lawyers found government records in his former office at a Washington think tank and said he does not know what information is contained in the classified documents.

“My lawyers have not suggested I asked what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes — they’ve turned over the boxes to the [National] Archives, and we’re cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon and will be more detail at that time,” Biden said at a press conference in Mexico City with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following their meeting.

On Monday, Biden’s personal lawyers disclosed that in November, a batch of documents from the time Biden was vice president, some of them classified, were found at the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, an institute named after Biden and affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania that the White House said Biden used at times between 2017 to 2020.

Republican lawmakers have launched inquiries into the matter.

On Tuesday, incoming House Intelligence chair Mike Turner sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines requesting an “immediate review and damage assessment.”

Turner said the discovery would put Biden in potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act, two laws that the Justice Department cited as the basis of their search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, last year. Trump had for months refused the National Archives’ request to hand over classified documents suspected to be in his possession, until a search conducted by FBI agents in August found hundreds of documents, dozens of them top secret.

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,” Trump asked via the Truth Social platform Monday evening.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said that following the discovery of the material they immediately notified the National Archives, the agency in charge of handling such presidential documents.

“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,” Sauber said in a statement.

Sauber said the documents were discovered when the attorneys were packing files “housed in a locked closet” to prepare to vacate office space and that the Archives took possession of the materials the following morning. He said Biden attorneys are working to ensure that “any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”

Not uncommon

Given its nature, any mishandling of classified material raises serious concerns, but such incidents are not uncommon and routinely handled through administrative proceedings, said Mark Zaid, an attorney focusing on national security law.

“A thorough factual investigation will be in everyone’s interests and presumably that will help identify whether any individual(s) are culpable,” Zaid told VOA in an email. “At this point, there does not seem to be any evidence that President Biden had any knowledge or involvement with the records in question, but we need to wait to learn more.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed John Lausch, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to investigate the matter. But even with the investigation, the White House is now in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why Biden may be committing the same transgression he had criticized Trump for.

Referring to the Mar-a-Lago documents, Biden questioned how “anyone could be that irresponsible” during a September interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and said he follows strict protocols governing sensitive material.

Republicans were quick to point out what they see as a double standard.

“If then-Vice President Biden took classified documents with him and held them for years and criticized former President Trump during that same time that he had those classified documents … I wonder why the press isn’t asking the same questions of him as vice president taking classified documents that they were asking President Trump,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said to reporters on Tuesday.

David A. Sklansky, former federal prosecutor and a professor of criminal law at Stanford University, said Biden’s case “isn’t remotely comparable” to Trump’s.

“What made the situation at Mar-a-Lago so serious wasn’t that classified documents were found there,” Sklansky told VOA. “It was the stonewalling and deception about those documents, and the repeated obstruction of the government’s efforts to recover the documents. There is no evidence of any of that here.”

Democratic lawmaker Pete Aguilar called Republicans’ move to investigate the president “hypocrisy at its finest,” saying that Republicans did not consider investigating the hundreds of documents found in Trump’s home to be a priority at the time.

“What President Biden did was disclose this to the Archives, let law enforcement know,” he said. “That is exactly the way that you should handle this.”

The White House has not confirmed whether the classified documents found at the Biden Penn Center include U.S. intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, as reported by CNN.

The Department of Justice and the FBI declined VOA’s request to comment, while Lausch’s office and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have not responded to VOA’s queries.

Katherine Gypson and Masood Farivar contributed to this report.
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