Biden reaches midterm with victories overshadowed by classified documents case

It is not exactly for the string of political victories that he has managed to collect in recent months, which include record jobs and control of inflation, that President Joe Biden has been remembered in the United States at the moment he completes two years of government.

In recent weeks, what has occupied the pages of the political news, the White House press conferences and the bombing in the Republican corridors of Congress are confidential documents from the period in which the Democrat was vice president, in the administration of Barack Obama (2009- 2016), found in an office attached to him and in his home.

Biden reaches the middle of his term in the midst of yet another crisis, having to try to explain how classified US government papers, the details of which are not yet known, ended up in private properties, when they should have been in the possession of the National Archives. As an aggravating factor, the case came to light months after his biggest political opponent, Donald Trump, became the target of a federal investigation and accelerated a frying process for basically doing the same thing – albeit on a larger scale and with important differences.

It cannot be said, however, that the democrat does not understand crises. He took over as president exactly two years ago, on January 20, 2021, amid the greatest political turmoil in the country’s recent history. In the run-up to the inauguration, Trump contested the groundless defeat in reality, encouraged supporters to storm the Capitol to avoid certifying the result, and traveled to Florida before handing over office, keeping up the spirits of a radicalized base.

The period was also the peak of Covid-19, when the disease killed more than 3,000 people a day in the country. Afterwards, Biden promoted the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, in a move considered disastrous, which almost definitively cost him his popularity; he saw Russia invade Ukraine and he led Western aid to Kiev; faced record inflation; and watched the Supreme Court overturn a decades-old understanding that the right to abortion was constitutional, which ran counter to his agenda.

In the last ten days, after a phase of political victories, the focus returned to the Democrat, when the CBS channel revealed that lawyers found confidential documents in an office – which, according to the White House, was locked – in a unit of the University of Pennsylvania named after him, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

Subsequently, more files were found at the president’s home in Delaware, and the total number of improperly stored papers could reach 20, according to CBS.

The government has been accused of responding erratically to the case and questioned why it did not disclose the existence of the files when they were discovered in early November. Until the press release, the case was confined to the White House, the National Archives and the Department of Justice, which was conducting a preliminary investigation.

This occurred less than two months after the FBI search and seizure operation at Trump’s Florida home, in which thousands of pages were found, some of them marked as top secret. At the time, Biden called the episode involving his predecessor “totally irresponsible” – now offering a full plate for Republicans and Trump himself to accuse him of hypocrisy.

“The case shames and removes an advantage that Biden had against Trump,” says political scientist Jonathan Hanson, a professor at the University of Michigan. “Even if the magnitude of what we’re talking about is substantially different, in the number of documents the former president had and the degree of cooperation, it undermines the ability to make critical comments.”

This Thursday, the issue was raised by journalists on the president’s trip to California to monitor the damage caused by the rains in the state. “I think you’ll find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets and I’m following the advice of the lawyers. We’re cooperating. [com as apurações] and hoping this gets resolved soon,” Biden said, before repeating, “There’s nothing there.”

The Democrat reaches half of the government with 43.4% approval, according to the FiveThirthyEight portal poll aggregator. The figure is slightly above what Trump had at the same time in office (40%), but below those of Barack Obama (49.6%) and George W. Bush (57.5%) —the latter, still enjoying the popularity he achieved after the response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The current president’s disapproval rate is 51.3%.

It was just what the new, Republican-controlled House needed. No wonder, Kevin McCarthy came to the presidency of the House promising to have the government in the crosshairs of legislative investigations.

James Comer, the new chairman of the Oversight Committee, the House’s highest investigative body, has already asked the federal administration for a list of visitors to the president’s residence in Wilmington and all documents and communications involving the search for the papers. According to him, there are “serious national security implications” in the case.

In strict political terms, Biden’s main recent victory was keeping control of the Senate for his party in the November legislative elections, the midterms, and retaining a significant number of seats in the House — even if the majority went to the Republican Party .

The Democrats lost nine seats and gained one senator. For comparison purposes, in the first midterms in past administrations, Republicans in the Trump era lost 40 deputies (although they won 2 senators) and Democrats in the Obama era lost 63 deputies and 6 senators.

George W. Bush, amid the high popularity after the attacks on the Twin Towers, managed to win seats in both houses, but, before him, Bill Clinton lost 52 representatives and 8 senators in the first midterms of his two terms.

The result cannot be fully credited to the current president, as other factors came into play, such as resistance to radical candidates supported by Trump and the defense of the right to abortion. But the numbers are still a victory and a relief for the current president.

Another big relief for Biden so far has come from the economy. The country has managed to control record inflation, which soared after the Ukrainian War. The increase in fuel and food prices accumulated in 12 months increased from 9% in June, before increasing to 6.5% in December.

15 Moments of the Biden Administration

• 20.jan.21 Biden takes office as the 46th US president and, on the first day, signs decrees to undo policies instituted by Donald Trump: interrupts the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico, reverses the country’s exit from the WHO and orders a return to the Paris Agreement
• 10.mar.21 Biden scores his first significant victory with Congressional approval of an economic stimulus package worth nearly $1.9 trillion
• 30.Aug.21 The first major defeat comes with the chaotic departure of the country’s military from Afghanistan, after 20 years of occupation; the move weakens the Democrat’s approval ratings
• 6.jan.22 On the day that marks the 1th year of the invasion of the Capitol, Biden attacks Trump and says that Americans need to strengthen democracy
• 25.jun.22 A supporter of greater gun control in the US, Biden sanctions a bipartisan law that provides for greater background checks on purchasers and allocates resources to mental health programs; measure is the biggest change in legislation on the subject since the 1990s
• July 8, 22 Days after the Supreme Court suspended the constitutional right to abortion, Biden signs a decree that provides for the creation of measures to facilitate access to the procedure and protect women from punishment
• July 13, 22 Pandemic and War in Ukraine pressure, and inflation accelerates to 9.1% in the accumulated 12 months, the highest level in 40 years; index would decelerate after interest rate increase
• 5.Aug.22 Biden celebrates drop in unemployment rate to 3.5%, lowest level in 50 years
• 7.Aug.22 Democrat has substantial victory after seeing a package of environmental, tax and drug projects approved in the Senate —the Inflation Reduction Act is considered the largest federal investment in history in mitigating the climate crisis
• 12.Nov.22 Democrats maintain Senate majority in midterms, and House defeat for the GOP is smaller than expected; result gives breath to Biden
• 16.Nov.22 Biden and G20 Leaders Sign Joint Statement Condemning Ukraine War; The text cites a UN resolution that repudiates “in the strongest terms Russia’s aggression” against its neighbor
• 14.Nov.22 Biden and Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping meet for the first time since the Democrat’s election; they sought to ease Cold War 2.0 tensions
• 21.Dec.22 Biden receives Volodymir Zelensky, the first time the Ukrainian leader has left his country since the beginning of the war; as of December, of the $40 billion sent in arms and military aid to Kiev, $24 billion is from the US
• 5.jan.23 Biden announces a package to alleviate migratory pressure, which, with increasing flows, has become one of the government’s biggest crises; mechanisms create quota for immigrants from Latin America in the US
• 9.jan.23 Lawyers announce the discovery of confidential documents from the period when Biden was Barack Obama’s deputy in private office; case increases pressure on the president