The discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden’s off-site office and Delaware home has reached a point where even Democrats can’t defend it, and comparisons to the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, are demonstrating how dissimilar the two incidents are in every way. Members of the president’s private legal team and the White House attorney were permitted “full access” to the Biden residence during what they termed a “thorough search.”

This week, four stacks of documents had already been discovered in Biden’s hands when another search uncovered more. Friday, the FBI raided one of Biden’s Delaware properties and discovered additional records. CNN claimed that the search was performed over the course of 12 hours on Friday with the agreement of the president’s counsel, unlike the raid on former President Donald Trump’s house.

Those six items are in addition to materials previously found at Biden’s Wilmington residence and in his private office. The federal search of Biden’s home, while voluntary, marks an escalation of special counsel Robert Hur’s probe into the president’s handling of classified documents and will inevitably draw comparisons to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump – even if the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence was conducted under different circumstances.

BREAKING: Feds searched Biden's home in Wilmington yesterday for nearly 12 hours and they found "six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate" pic.twitter.com/bizExMsxPJ

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 22, 2023

Biden, as a U.S. senator and even as Barack Obama’s vice president, never had the ability to declassify records, Fox News said, so the fact that he possessed them is concerning to a rising number of Democrats.

With the latest discovery, there is no real question that the Biden documents were grossly mishandled. There only remains who was responsible. However, the discovery of documents at yet another location used by the President is crushing for his defense team.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 22, 2023

Some Democrats are speaking out against President Joe Biden and his possession of the records as a result of the clear facts, which even Democrats cannot dispute.

Senate Democrats are disturbed that President Joe Biden may have been in possession of hundreds of secret papers in violation of the law, and they favor a probe into the subject in its entirety. Conservative Brief writes that the claims of President Biden mishandling confidential materials are incredibly reckless and alarming. Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) told a network that these claims must be thoroughly probed. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running partner, concurred. Kaine stated, “This news raises serious questions and the appointment of an unbiased special prosecutor to investigate the matter is the right step.” 

Last Monday, Democrats talked briefly, if grudgingly, according to Fox News:

Attorney General Merrick Garland named former U.S. attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to examine the now-management president’s of papers from his term as vice president last week.

Manchin and Kaine joined a noticeably small list of Democrats who have spoken out about the Biden document scandal, while most, especially those up for re-election in 2024, have been reluctant to address the situation. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who announced earlier this month that she would be seeking Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s, D-Calif., Senate seat even though Feinstein has yet to announce her retirement, told Fox after a Tuesday town hall event that lawmakers “definitely” wanted “to get answers from the White House” concerning the documents.

“Classified documents belong in classified settings, and I think you heard me say oversight is not a partisan thing. Good oversight means you’re willing to hold any rule breaker to account,” she said. “We should be asking for answers in a respectful way, and we should be expecting to get honest ones.”

Another Democrat was more forthright on the issue and its implications for the Democratic Party. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), who has already indicated she would not seek reelection in 2020, said that the finding of a rising quantity of secret materials in Biden’s possession does not bode well after she condemned Trump’s predicament. “Well, it’s certainly embarrassing. Right?” Stabenow said during an interview on NBC last week. “I mean, it’s embarrassing that you would find a small number of documents, certainly not on purpose. They don’t think it’s the right thing, and they’ve been moving to correct it, working with the Department of Justice, working with everyone involved, with the [National] Archives, and so from my perspective, you know, it’s one of those moments that obviously they wish hadn’t happened.”

…This now has to be not only "inadvertent" but almost miraculous that the documents seem to follow the President without any knowledge or purpose for their use. For unknown and unrequested documents, they seem to track the President wherever he goes.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 22, 2023

A statement from Biden’s office was issued:

“DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” the president’s personal attorney said.

According to Fox News, the outlet contacted more than a dozen additional Democrats, many of whom had comments regarding Trump’s materials, but they did not answer.