CNN’s Daniel Dale Fact-Checks Biden’s Claims from Last Night: ‘Just Not True!’

BERMAN: “President Biden made some claims in his defense on the substance of this report. How do some of those claims hold up, with us now CNN Senior Reporter, Daniel Dale. Great to see you, by the way, Daniel. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Dale: “You too, John.”
BERMAN: “One thing that President Biden said is basically that he stored the documents and filing cabinets that could be locked. Let’s listen.”
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Biden: “All the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to locked.”
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BERMAN: “Daniel?”
Dale: “Just just not true, John. This report from the special counsel includes photos, those photos include shots of a box just sitting in President Biden’s Delaware garage. The special counsel described it as a badly damaged box sitting amid household detritus. So there was some material that was in cabinets locked, or lockable as the president said, but all of it certainly not, and that open, unsealed damage box included, according to the special counsel, highly sensitive top secret material about the war in Afghanistan.”
BERMAN: “OK. Another claim that President Biden made. None of the documents were highly classified. Let’s listen.”
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Biden: “None of it was high classified, didn’t have any that red stuff on it. You know what I mean, around the corners, None of that.”
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BERMAN: “Daniel?”
Dale: “That claim that he didn’t have any material that was quote/unquote ‘high classified’ is also not true, John. The special counsel’s report says that the president possessed multiple highly classified documents that were indeed marked as being highly classified documents, including some marked as top secret/SCI, Sensitive Compartmented Information, that is a very high level of classification. For example, Special Counsel Hur discussed two top secret documents about Afghanistan found in that open, unsealed, damaged box in the garage, one of which Hur said contains highly sensitive info about military programs, and another that contains info about sensitive intelligence and sources and methods. Now, it’s not clear, John, if any of those Biden documents had those colored borders. We saw on classified dock that former President Trump had, which I think is what President Biden was referring to when he talked about red around the corners, but still, whatever coloring these documents had, the special counsel says they were clearly marked as highly classified. And then I should add Hur also said that investigators analysis of Biden’s own handwritten notes from his time as vice president showed that these notebooks also contain highly classified info, though those were not marked, and Hur said a sampling of 37 excerpts found that quote, ‘eight are top secret with sensitive compartmented information, seven of which include information concerning human intelligence sources, plus six others that were top secret.”
BERMAN: “And then the third claim that he made, Daniel, there was that he did not share classified information with a ghostwriter on a book he was working on. Listen to that.”
[Clip starts]
Biden: “I did not share classified information. I did not share.
Reporter: “With your ghostwriter?”
Biden: “With my ghostwriter, I did not. Guarantee you, I did not. What the —“
Reporter: “But the special counsel said that —“ [crosstalk]
Biden: “Well, no, they did not say that.”
Reporter: “OK.”
Biden: “He did not say that.”
[Clip ends]
Dale: “So he’s entitled to say he didn’t do it. He can defend himself. But he also said the special counsel didn’t say that he did share that classified info with a ghostwriter. Except John, the special counsel did say that explicitly. Hur wrote, quote, ‘Mr. Biden shared information, including some classified information, from those notebooks with his ghostwriter. So there it is in black and white. Now Hur did elaborate that Biden shared classified info with the ghostwriter by reading nearly verbatim from the notebooks on at least three occasions, including notes from meetings in the Situation Room. He did find the Biden, quote, ‘at times, try to avoid sharing classified info,’ like by skipping over certain material as he was reading them to the ghostwriter, and Hur did write that the evidence does not show that Biden knew the info was classified. Nonetheless, even though the special counsel did clearly give him some material to defend himself with, this is not a factual defense. So he could say the factual stuff, you know, Hur said didn’t know it is intentional, et cetera, but declaring the special counsel just did not say what he said, John, is not a factual defense.”
BERMAN: “Important to note. Daniel Dale, always great to have you. Thanks so much.”