68 Days of Silence: Why White House Stayed Mum on Docs…

WASHINGTON — The decision by President Biden and his top advisers to keep the discovery of classified documents secret from the public and even most of the White House staff for 68 days was driven by what turned out to be a futile hope that the incident could be quietly disposed of without broader implications for Mr. Biden or his presidency.The handful of advisers who were aware of the initial discovery on Nov. 2 — six days before the midterm elections — gambled that without going public, they could convince the Justice Department that the matter was little more than a minor, good-faith mistake, unlike former President Donald J. Trump’s hoarding of documents at his Florida estate.In fact, the Biden strategy was profoundly influenced by the Trump case, in which the former president refused to turn over all the classified documents he had taken, even after being subpoenaed. The goal for the Bide …