President Joe Biden will likely avoid criminal charges over the discovery of classified documents at his home and former private office because of one key fact, according to a former federal prosecutor.
Nick Akerman, a lawyer who served as a member of the Watergate prosecution team, said during a Tuesday appearance on the NewsNation TV network that Biden may not face legal penalties simply because the statute of limitations has run out.
During the NewsNation interview, host Adrienne Bankert asked Akerman: "In terms of legality, could he [Biden] face any consequences for having these documents for such a long period of time, from when he was a sitting vice president?"
"Well, the long period of time, really, kind of is outside the statute of limitations for any kind of criminal charge," Akerman said. "The normal criminal statute of limitations here is five years. Unless something else happened in between, there really is no crime to charge."
Biden, who has criticized former President Donald Trump for keeping classified documents at his Florida home that resulted in an FBI raid in August 2022, admitted last Thursday to storing such documents in his home and personal library. Classified documents have also been found at a Washington, D.C., office Biden used before becoming president.
Akerman said during his interview with Bankert that there were large differences between the Biden and Trump document controversies.
The former federal prosecutor noted how Biden has been cooperating with the Department of Justice, whereas Trump had "personally directed his attorneys to say there were no further documents when he obviously knew there were because some of these documents were in his personal safe and in his personal desk."
Akerman also criticized the government for allowing the documents to go missing in the first place.
"My local library, when I was in junior high school, did a better job of keeping track of the books that I took out and made sure I turned them back in," he said. "The real question is: What does the government do in terms of cataloging what's given to people, to presidents, to vice presidents, to Cabinet members? And what efforts are made when they catalog it to go back and make sure that everything's turned back in?"
Akerman continued, "Why is it that local libraries do a better job than this, than the federal government? That's the part that I think really has to be addressed here in terms of some change and some reforms."
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Justice and Akerman for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
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