In the News: Presidential Records 2

Show Notes

Nia and Aughie discuss the continuing issue of Presidential and Vice-Presidential classified documents being found in inappropriate locations. They further discuss the need for regulations to be simplified and the classification scheme to be applied more carefully.

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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.

N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?

N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you?

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay not only am I good, okay. But listeners, last fall we instituted a new feature on this podcast in the news. Typically we go ahead and we do an inner news episode. We talked for 20, 25 minutes, sometimes a little bit longer, and then we've effectively addressed some noteworthy in the news government document, government process, etc., and we're done with it. But in this particular podcast episode, we're doing a follow-up to an in-the-news episode that we just published last week.

N. Rodgers: Because it is the ongoing saga.

J. Aughenbaugh: Of presidents, vice presidents' confidential documents, and the Presidential Records Act. Now, listeners in this previous in-the-news podcast episode, Nia joked that she perhaps would have classified documents in her apartment and we laughed it off because let's face it, neither Nia or I at least to our knowledge has access to classified documents.

N. Rodgers: But that's turning out to be the caveat. To our knowledge is turning out to be the caveat. I don't think I have them.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because since we recorded that podcast episode.

N. Rodgers: They're being found everywhere. They're being found in wells where Timmy has fallen in. What Lassie? Timmy is in the well, he's got classified documents. Let's go help him. They're everywhere. Sorry, that's a reference to Lassie, the show Lassie. But anyway, like Mike Pence, if there was more of a straight arrow,than Mike Pence who calls his wife mother because she is the mother of his children and he doesn't call her mama or mom, sir, mother. He's that guy and he's had them. Mike Pence have the classified documents by the way.

J. Aughenbaugh: Classified. Okay.

N. Rodgers: Well, his old department, apparently.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. Listeners. Mike Pence is the type of guy who only does yard work in pressed, creased khakis shorts. Okay. This guy is in the dictionary, Nia. When there is the phrase straight arrow. Okay, there is a photo of Mike Pence in the dictionary.

N. Rodgers: This is what a straight arrow looks like.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay, so it's now been reported, okay again for listeners.

N. Rodgers: Because it started at Mar-a-Lago. It started in Mar-a-Lago in Florida lovely resort. Apparently, President Trump had taken some documents. The National Archives was saying, excuse me, we'd like those documents back, and he's like, "No, no, I did classify them their mind now, mine, I tell you and I'm not giving them back," and so they went back and forth. Then the FBI got involved because apparently when the National Archives really want something they call the FBI which seems a little odd. But anyway.

J. Aughenbaugh: They seek the Fibbies on you.

N. Rodgers: We all thought that was the end of it and then.

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, but pause right there, Nia. Because we could have just gone ahead and explain it away as Donald Trump being Donald Trump, right?

N. Rodgers: Right, and as moving being moving, which can be as you and I have discussed, complicated. I believe, that you said it took you two years to locate a pizza cutter.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Like it just happens to people, just happens. But then President Biden, apparently, somebody found some stuff in a closet in one of his old offices that's now being used for a different purpose and they were like, "Hey, what's this, oh, classified documents? Oh, no." Then they figured out he had some in his home and he had some in the vice presidential house.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: He had them spread around, and so now you're like, okay, that's two presidents. But you know, that's just a recent laxity, maybe.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes and you can explain it away with Joe Biden. He's somewhat older. He sometimes stretches the truth. Okay. Blah, blah, blah.

N. Rodgers: Yeah.

J. Aughenbaugh: Uncle Joe didn't have a really good handle on what was classified, what wasn't. Okay, etc. But then Mike Pence, apparently is just like, "Hey, wait a minute here. If this has happened to my former boss and the next guy, maybe I should go ahead and take a look." That's what he did, and lo and behold, he now has classified documents that he has no business according to the Presidential Records Act of having.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay.

N. Rodgers: That's in Indiana. It's spreading across the country. This classified documents problem is spreading across the country. Now, what we should note for the record, by the way, is that both President Obama and President Clinton have said, "No, we don't have any, we don't have any. We checked and they've all been sent to the National Archives." Do I believe that that is absolutely true? Well, I think that other people thought they had sent the correct documents to National Archives too. I'm not accusing President Obama or President Clinton, but the Archives has said, "Hey, maybe we should ask all the ex-living presidents and vice presidents if they happen to have classified documents hanging around."

J. Aughenbaugh: Before we get to the real problem. Would it surprise me, if in the Clinton Presidential Library, I believe in Arkansas. At least that's what our colleague [inaudible] . Okay. Wouldn't shock me if they found classified documents at that presidential library? No.

N. Rodgers: Or in somebody's personal papers.

J. Aughenbaugh: Would it surprise me that former Vice President Dick Cheney's ranch in Wyoming that there is some gun closet that has a whole bunch of hunting rifles, and then underneath are a bunch of file folders, Manila. Okay, and inside there are classified documents? No. Because this points to the problem that you were going to identify. Which is?

N. Rodgers: Which is the problem that you mentioned to me earlier and you're dead on, which is the classification system in this country needs to be fixed. Because clearly, we have a problem with what people think should be classified or is classified, what gets marked classified, and then what gets reported to archives. There are breakdowns at every stage of this process.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay, so for listeners, we did a previous podcast series about government commissions, and one of the ones we looked at, looked at the classification system. I think it was the Moynihan Commission, Nia as I'm talking. If you can go and verify that.

N. Rodgers: Okay.

J. Aughenbaugh: It was senator Pat Moynihan. I'll let the commission know the Moynihan Commission about classified documents.

N. Rodgers: Government secrecy. Yes.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah okay. The Moynihan Commission, one of its findings, was that government agencies in response to the passage of the Freedom of Information Act in the 1960s, basically just went overboard in stamping stuff classified because they don't want the American public, the media, but they don't even want other people in the government to read this stuff.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay because who can read classified documents, is limited by law. Because we've classified so much stuff which by the way, should not be classified.

N. Rodgers: Yeah, this idea that foreign nationals that you're worried about knowing a thing won't know the thing. They already know the thing.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Human intelligence is really good.

J. Aughenbaugh: Good. Moreover, a lot of the stuff that you think would be embarrassing because you work in the government, the rest of the public really don't care. Okay like, call logs. Well, we don't want our enemies to know who is actually calling the president.

N. Rodgers: Who cares.

J. Aughenbaugh: One, who cares? But two, if they were really that concerned, they already know.

N. Rodgers: Right. What you think the President doesn't have a cell phone? Not everything is done through official, it's just crazy. But what's really crazy to me is that what I think is happening, is that somebody is reading a thing, then Vice President Biden, Vice President Pence, President Trump, President Biden, whomever is reading a thing and it doesn't feel particularly classified.

J. Aughenbaugh: No.

N. Rodgers: They're just reading a report on troop movements in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. But it's marked as classified. It doesn't feel classified. You close the folder and you put it in a drawer because somebody interrupts you. But it doesn't feel like it's a thing you should lock back into the safe and treat with music drama. Because if everything you look at is stamped classified, including the lunch menu, then after a while.

J. Aughenbaugh: Then nothing is classified.

N. Rodgers: Exactly, you start to lose your sensitivity to that classification.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, you grow numb to it.

N. Rodgers: Thank you, you grow numb to it.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because if you define or identify everything as classified, then nothing is classified. It's like the cry wolf syndrome.

N. Rodgers: Exactly.

J. Aughenbaugh: You cry wolf enough after a while, people are going to ignore you when there's actually a wolf. That's about ready to attack your livestock.

N. Rodgers: Exactly.

J. Aughenbaugh: If you go ahead and classify the menu for a state dinner with the French premier. Well, it's already reported in the Washington Post lifestyle section, for goodness' sakes, that's not classified.

N. Rodgers: Well and obviously we're being extreme, they're not classifying menus, but by the same token, they are classifying things like troop movements, that are two weeks old.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Who cares? In a war two weeks might as well be a lifetime. Like it doesn't matter at that point, but you're right if the over classification or the weird classification of documents only so and so can see this. Part of that too goes to the different departments need to have control over information because control over information is budget. Information equals money, if I can provide a piece of information to the president, I can get bigger budget next year.

J. Aughenbaugh: This goes back to something that, Nia, you and I discussed in this podcast. Turf battles between government agencies. Frequently centers on who has the information, and then who can present it directly to the president. If you can go ahead and exclude, other agencies who might want to have a cut of whatever you're doing or of the budget for whatever you're doing. Well, that's a good reason to label a document or documents about a program as classified, and that just makes the government more inefficient. Moreover, it's leading to this problem. You and I discussed this in the previous podcast episode, about presidents and classified documents. Since we've passed the Presidential Records Act, every presidential administration has run into problems with complying with the Presidential Records Act.

N. Rodgers: Which should tell you that there's a problem with the process. If nobody can get your process right. The process is the problem, not the individual.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: It would be one thing if one president, well then we could just blame one president. But if presidents from both parties, if presidents of different educational backgrounds, different whatever, can't get your process right, there's something wrong with your process.

J. Aughenbaugh: Then it also begs the question in general, listeners, Nia and I are huge fans of the United States archive office. Think about this podcast, we love government documents placed in archives. But folks, what's going on here in regards to the archive office not getting classified documents, before these folks are leaving office. Either they don't have enough staff or this after the fact reminds me of the game of I have Gotcha. No you go ahead and do that. I'm just going to wait until you screw up. Don't do that, we worked in the government.

N. Rodgers: That's just not nice.

J. Aughenbaugh: It's not nice, again, this has been a problem since the law was passed. At some point in time, either the archive office needs to go ahead and appeal to Congress. "Hey guys, we got a problem here, and this needs to be fixed." Because as you pointed out, Nia, this cuts across political parties. It cuts across presidential personalities, vice-presidential personalities. We got an issue with, how do we maintain vital presidential and vice presidential records, after they leave office? Because if we assume that those documents belong to the public, not everything that the president or vice president does is so noteworthy that it belongs to the public. I'm sorry. There's a lot of stuff the presidents and vice presidents do that is not noteworthy. But if it gets a classified label, well this has got to be noteworthy. There must be secrets.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Okay, that's not what's going on here.

N. Rodgers: Wasn't it President Obama who said there's classified and then there's classified?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: He was like, I have had access to a lot of information in some of this stuff is not has no business being classified.

J. Aughenbaugh: Obama wanted to go ahead and change the classification system. He got absolutely nowhere. Again, it's because a lot of Cabinet departments were just like, "No, we like the current system."

N. Rodgers: Because it lets us have siloing. It lets us have access to information and we can hold it over other people. Just as a side note, we would like to also note for listeners that just because you say a thing as declassified doesn't make a declassified. There's also a process for that. The argument of well, if it's in my possession, is therefore declassified and I'm not in trouble is a terrible argument.

J. Aughenbaugh: When, I heard that from President Trump.

N. Rodgers: Now there are people who are using that in defense of President Biden as well. Saying well, but you're like, "Well okay." No, no, no. If it's bad for one side to say that argument, it's bad for the other side to say that argument. Again, we come back to civil discourse with, if it is wrong for one person to do it, it is wrong for all the people to do it. As much as we think Mike Pence is a straight arrow and relatively well-known standoffish guy. He screwed up. There's no defense of that particularly, except that the system is Byzantine. That I actually feel bad for him. But if somebody tried to hand me a classified document at this point, I would be like, "Oh no, that is radioactive get that thing away from me." I don't want to know anything. I don't want to talk to anybody about anything. As president, that would be really hard for me. What I'm going to set the rule as when I'm president is, if I can find this by a pretty decent Google search. Do not classify it. Do not tell me that it's classified because you're trying to impress me with your information gathering skills. When a 16-year-old with their phone could find the same stuff and by the way, can find way more stuff than you found. Because folks today are amazing with their search skills, then don't even with me with this miss me with this classified stuff. I don't want to hear it. It needs to be actual legitimate. That word needs to mean something. If it doesn't mean something, then why do we have it? Similarly, I would like to take just a brief moment to complain. National Archives, I'm looking at you as a fellow organizer of information/librarian. Get your act together. You are embarrassing information professionals everywhere, but not having any idea about what's supposed to be in your collections. If you don't know, how on earth is anybody else supposed to know? You need better document control. If you don't have good enough document control, you need to figure out why and you need to change it. I got all ranty there. Sorry.

J. Aughenbaugh: No and I get that. I suspect the archive office could probably respond to what you just said with this, "Well, have you ever dealt with a former President?" I get that. On the other hand, it goes back to something, Nia, you've heard me say off recording a number of times. that is, it's your job. It may not be a pleasant part of your job, but it's your job.

N. Rodgers: You know how to succeed at work? Show up on time, and do the job. That's how you succeed at work. It's really pretty simple. Don't be a jerk.

J. Aughenbaugh: Don't be a be a jerk.

N. Rodgers: Don't be a jerk show up on time and do the work. You got two of those but you're not doing the work.

J. Aughenbaugh: I get it. But most jobs do require at times for individuals to deal with other people who are difficult. I can only imagine how difficult former presidents and vice presidents are to deal with.

N. Rodgers: I'm sure, I'm sure there's stroppy and I will give you what I want to give you and you're not going to make me do anything different. That's when you say really, because an FBI raid isn't going to look so great on your home. Maybe we could avoid that. Could we avoid that please?

J. Aughenbaugh: See how see how good your legacy is, you know, Mr. President, when you have to devote a chapter of your memoir to the fact that the FBI raided private residence because you had classified documents.

N. Rodgers: You were being recalcitrant about giving them back.

J. Aughenbaugh: Let's try to avoid that.

N. Rodgers: Also, no lawyers going to ever let you hire them if you keep lying about having stuff. I mean, what? Just stop. All the presidents from now on. You know, what I would love to see is a president who actually said, "This is not classified, take this away, you ninny, and retitle it as something other than top secret or classified. It just comes in here as regular information." I would love that. But part of what that is though, is that presidents don't, at best, they have eight years in the system. Whereas the guys who were marking things classified has been there for 30 years.

J. Aughenbaugh: Presidents are having information shot, you know.

N. Rodgers: Like a fire house.

J. Aughenbaugh: Directed at them like a firehose.

N. Rodgers: Try drinking from that.

J. Aughenbaugh: They want the best information so they can make really difficult decisions. After a while, whether a document, a report, a file is labeled classified or not. I mean, after a while. Then I read this, you know, cheapest staff, blah, blah, blah, in that report two weeks ago? I think I recall reading it. Can you refresh my memory? You're not discussing whether or not it's classified. You're just like, am I pulling that up correctly? In the deep dark recesses of my brain. But I mean, you make a really good point. Right now, if I was in charge of a law firm and a former president or vice president wanted to place me on retainer. I'm upping my rates.

N. Rodgers: Right. I work for you but it's going to cost you.

J. Aughenbaugh: It's going to cost you. Because right now, a whole bunch of lawyers employed by Trump, Biden.

N. Rodgers: You told me I had them all, sir. Well, I thought you had them all. Okay sir, but that's not good enough because I lied to the federal government on your behalf that you had them all.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because right now, Bush's 43 is attorneys on his ranch in Texas trying to figure out, do we know where all the documents are? He's been painting since he's been president. Is that actually in one of his paintings?

N. Rodgers: The backboard on that is classified, I ran out of paper. I don't think, by the way, that President Bush is doing that, but I do think that there's likely to be stuff and I think that it's funny that President Obama and President Clinton both came out and said, "No, we don't have any." I'm like, do say that because you think you don't have any. But in your pricing, people are going to find something and then you're just going to be called a liar and part of it is again as we reiterate, it is the system that is a problem here. It's not that presidents are trying to be difficult. Well, some of them are. But generally speaking, that's not what they're trying to do. They're not trying to be difficult. It's a murky mess and it needs to be fixed, and it's not just the presidents. It's just that the presidents are being held to account. But if you think this isn't happening with members of Congress that sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, that sit on the National Security Committees and have access to all classified information. If you think that stuff is not sitting around on somebody's coffee table, then you need to get out more because that is what's happening. Like those documents.

J. Aughenbaugh: I found it funny that, Nia, that since the disclosure of President Biden's classified documents, a number of members of Congress in both political parties have acted like they are holier than thou. I'm just like, you ought to be careful here.

N. Rodgers: Be careful. You're holding a rock and you're thinking about throwing it and you look around and you see that you're standing in a big glass room, you might want to reconsider.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, put that rock down.

N. Rodgers: Walk away from the rock and nobody gets hurt.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because once you go ahead and throw down that gauntlet, we are better than you guys

N. Rodgers: Congress never has this problem. My great Googly Moogly's. I don't even want to think about the level of government classified information that has leaked out of Congress. As we just discussed the Supreme Court can be leaky.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's where I was going next. I got to admit, Nia, I would really like to go like two or three weeks.

N. Rodgers: Without a leak.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because not only would I like for us to get back to our regular recordings of podcast episodes, but I'm really getting tired about talking about government leaks because as you pointed out. If we're talking about it this much, it's not just the individuals. The systems that we have put in place need some significant overhaul. Folks, this is 21st century. If there's a document you don't want discovered, somebody's going to discover it.

N. Rodgers: Right. If there's a document you don't want discovered, carve it into stone tablet and bury it in your backyard because that is the only way, then archaeologists will find it 100 years from now. But beyond that, if you have a computer and your computer is attached to anything.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Any network at all, any Internet at all, any anything, then you are already compromised.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Yeah, this idea that we're not well, anyway. I think that 2020s are going to be the decade of leaks. I think this is going to be when we come to some terms about what we call classified, what we call private, what we tried to keep from the public and what we don't. I think that discussion is the bigger discussion that needs to be had. What is the role of classification and do we really need it in a time when hackers know more about you than you know about you?

J. Aughenbaugh: Sure. Again, I think it's high time that of all the things, Nia, you and I have indicated on this podcast that we would like the government to actually debate, discuss, look at the pros, the cons, the trade-offs, we should add this to the list because again, this is 21st century.

N. Rodgers: After crying out loud, why are you-all printing things out? What in the world?

J. Aughenbaugh: That's the other thing that came to my mind.

N. Rodgers: Why are people finding paper documents anywhere?

J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, you and I worked for an institution that easily a decade or so ago went ahead and said we're going paperless.

N. Rodgers: Because we decided to start murdering all the trees.

J. Aughenbaugh: By goodness, folks, and I kid you not the best way to go ahead and get rid of a whole bunch of government employees printing up stuff is slashing their paper in the printer cartridge budgets.

N. Rodgers: Yeah.

J. Aughenbaugh: When you do that, then you have to go ahead and pay for it out of your own pocket and we ain't doing that. We're just not doing that. We're paperless. But that's what really struck me was they get all these paper documents floating around.

N. Rodgers: What in the world are you all doing?

J. Aughenbaugh: If nothing else, have conversations, don't even put it on computer. If you really wanted to go ahead and keep something classified, don't put it into a computer system, don't print it up. Have a conversation, at least, then you have plausible deniability.

N. Rodgers: Exactly. I don't even remember who came here that day, let alone what we talked about. If you think the president needs a written document because there are points that need to be, make sure that there are two copies of it, yours in his. There's not this thing of I give it to these five people who we discussed. No, oh my goodness. You and I have so much to do when I'm president.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie. I appreciate it and I'm sure we'll be talking about this again. Kim Kardashian will say, "You mean these classified documents?" It will be like okay. Now we've just jumped the shark.

J. Aughenbaugh: I mean, 2023 might be the year of the leak.

N. Rodgers: I'm okay with that. The Time Magazine committed on their cover if they still had one.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I want attribution of all those media sources.

N. Rodgers: Yeah, no kidding. I'd want royalties.

J. Aughenbaugh: Anyways, Nia.

N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughe.

J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you.