How Biden’s Mishandling of Classified Papers Differs From Trump’s Criminal Case

A special counsel’s conclusion that “no criminal charges are warranted” against President Biden for possessing classified material while he was out of office stands in contrast with another special counsel’s decision to bring criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump for keeping classified documents after he left the White House.

After the Justice Department released the final report of the special counsel in the Biden documents inquiry this week, Mr. Trump sought to portray the two matters as equivalent and declared that he was being treated differently for political reasons.

“You know, look, if he’s not going to be charged, that’s up to them — but then I should not be charged,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pa. “This is nothing more than selective persecution of Biden’s political opponent: me.”

But despite their superficial similarity, the facts of the two cases are very different, as the report by the special counsel in the Biden inquiry — Robert K. Hur, a Republican whom Mr. Trump had previously appointed to two Justice Department positions — stressed. Here is a closer look.

How are the situations similar?

The investigations involved the discovery that papers containing classified information had improperly accompanied Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden after they left office — Mr. Trump when he left the presidency in 2021, and Mr. Biden when he left the vice presidency in 2017 — and that were being stored improperly. In both cases, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate.

How did the two men’s responses differ?

In his report, Mr. Hur noted that “several material distinctions” between the two cases were clear and that the allegations against Mr. Trump, if proved, “present serious aggravating facts,” unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden. In particular, he said, the two men had responded very differently to the situations.