Ratcliffe reacts to discovery of Biden's classified documents: 'Cannot be an inadvertent mistake'
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to discuss Biden's handling of classified material and why the timeline "doesn't add up."
President Joe Biden is facing fierce scrutiny over the debacle surrounding his mishandling of classified documents after it was unveiled that additional classified material was discovered at his Wilmington, Delaware, home.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe joined "Fox & Friends Weekend" to discuss the revelations and his broader concern surrounding the bombshell discoveries.
"It gets worse every day for President Biden," Ratcliffe said on Sunday. "The way it's going, I would half expect [White House press secretary] Karine Jean-Pierre to change her mantra at the next White House press conference from Joe Biden takes classified documents seriously to Joe Biden takes classified documents."
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"We've gone from one set of documents in one location to four different sets of documents in four different locations, and we frankly don't know where that's going to end, where we're going to be at this point next week, and so that makes it really difficult for Joe Biden," he continued.
The White House confirmed on Saturday that another batch of classified material was found at Biden's private residence this week.
Special counsel to the president, Richard Sauber, disclosed in a statement that five additional pages of documents with classified markings were found at Biden's home Thursday evening, making a total of six classified documents retrieved from there.
Sauber explained that when Biden's personal attorneys identified one classified document at Biden's home on Wednesday, they immediately stopped searching for additional documents because they lacked the security clearances necessary to view those materials.
He then said he went to the home and facilitated the exchange of the material, handing it over to the Justice Department, since he had the appropriate security clearance.
But even after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a special counsel into the matter, Ratcliffe argued that Biden's mishandling of the material is anything but an accident as officials search for answers.
"It can't be an inadvertent mistake when you do it four times. One time, maybe it's an inadvertent mistake, but … four times?" Ratcliffe said. "Not to mention, of course … his admission that anyone that would do this would be irresponsible. … In legal terms … that's essentially an admission of gross negligence, which is the legal standard."
"So, all of that from a legal standpoint, my concern as the former DNI is the national security standpoint, the fact that classified documents were kept at a house where a drug addict who has colleagues from communist China and unsavory oligarchs from Ukraine would have access to that," he continued. "What could possibly go wrong? I think, again, it gets worse every day for President Biden with regard to this issue."
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Ratcliffe noted that the timeline "just doesn't add up" as lingering questions remain surrounding the lawyers' discovery of the materials.
But even despite the questionable timeline, Ratcliffe said there's a double standard as it pertains to the treatment of former President Donald Trump and Biden with regard to classified material.
"Looking at the disparity in the treatment between President Biden and former President Trump … it's remarkable," Ratcliffe said. "And … you want to talk about dirty little secrets … I think that what we saw was an unprecedented raid of the former president (Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Aug. 8) as a way of targeting a political opponent. I think that was intended to lead to an unprecedented prosecution that is now here to hit a roadblock, if you will, named Joe Biden."
"I don't think that the Biden Department of Justice ever thought they'd be sitting around saying, ‘Well, how are we possibly going to prosecute former President Trump for conduct that President Biden has so clearly committed at a level that is so more egregious and with such a greater frequency?’ And I think that's why they are in the mess that they are," he continued.
Fox News' Chris Pandolfo and Kelly Laco contributed to this report.
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