[johnforbes]

President Biden and his top advisers kept the discovery of classified documents secret from the public for 68 days in the futile hope that it could be swept under the rug without any blowback for his presidency, according to a report.

The New York Times, citing anonymous sources familiar with internal White House deliberations, reported that Mr. Biden and a handful of advisers believed they could convince Justice Department officials that the incident was “little more than a minor, good-faith mistake.” They felt the episode was unlike former President Donald Trump, keeping a large number of classified documents at his private Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The report published Friday said the Biden team’s goal “was to win the trust of Justice Department investigators and demonstrate that the president and his team were cooperating fully” — without ever telling the public. They hoped the matter “could be quietly disposed of without broader implications for Mr. Biden or his presidency.”