As a G-15/10 former federal government USIA Division Chief in Washington DC, allow me to explain the different classifications.
There are classified, secret and top secret a typical system contains four levels of confidentiality: Confidential only senior management has access. Restricted most employees have access Internal all employees have access.
Documents and other information must be properly marked "by the author" with one of several hierarchical levels of sensitivity—restricted, confidential, secret, and top secret.
Top Secret is the highest level of classification. However, some information is further categorized/marked by adding a code word so that only those who have been cleared for each code word can see it.
Lead of the day: “Move over Hillary Clinton’s emails; make room for Joe Biden’s documents.” (That was written by NBC News’) https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/is-the-president-biden-document…
Reportedly, an attempt to position the Think Tank Papers story as one that - in the words of a CNN commentator almost exonerates Trump is wrong. The raw numbers are startling: between 5 and 11 PM ET Monday, MSNBC gave the story 14 minutes, Fox News gave it 29 minutes, and CNN gave it 107 MINUTES. Anderson Cooper said “President Biden’s first public statement on the classified documents uncovered at his former private office were 'breaking news.' More from this is below.
Therefore, the following words to the wise are sufficient. They come from former Associated Press correspondent and wordsmith Mark Twain:
- "An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth."
- "When in doubt‚ tell the truth."
- "If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
- “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
For these reasons, I will only share two versions of the CLASSIFIED story from the world's oldest news agencies.
DOJ reviewing potentially classified docs at Biden center https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-government-812e…
Classified documents from Biden's vice presidency found at a think tank https://www.reuters.com/world/us/classified-documents-bidens-vice-presi…
Classified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?
The president and his predecessor have each retained secret papers but what do we know and what happens next?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/12/trump-biden-classified-…