Emptywheel on the Biden documents case: As CBS first broke the story yesterday, on November 2, some Biden associates discovered around ten classified documents (including some classified TS/SCI) in files from his former offices at Penn Biden. The documents were returned the next day, NARA made a referral to the FBI, and Merrick Garland asked one of two remaining Trump US Attorney appointees to investigate the matter. The report has generated a lot of insanely bad reporting, including this article from the NYT — with four reporters bylined and two more contributing — that doesn’t even mention a key detail from a recent Alan Feuer scoop (which I wrote about here): that Beryl Howell might yet hold Trump or his lawyers in contempt for failing to return all the classified documents in his possession. Peter Baker and his colleagues didn’t mention that recent NYT scoop, but it did see fit to quote the former President without fact check. Nor did they note that Biden is not complaining that this is under investigation, whereas Trump has never shut up about it. Indeed, a key part of Trump’s defense has been that NARA had no authority to refer the matter for investigation. So Trump’s embrace of this investigation eliminates a claim he has been relying on in his own defense. Another amusing difference is that for the entirety of the Trump Administration, Biden continued to have clearance; Biden decided not to continue intelligence briefings for Trump shortly after he launched a coup attempt. Some outlets, including the NYT, have…