Biden Reveals Classified Information?
05/16/09 from The Weekly Standard
Joe Biden is proving impossible to parody.
In one of the few funny jokes at the White House correspondents dinner, Wanda
Sykes won loud laughter when she joked that terrorists interested in learning
America's most important secrets would only have to ask Biden how he's doing.
According to an account in Newsweek, Biden did give up one of the country's
secrets at another dinner where journalists and politicians make fun of
Republicans (and occasionally laugh at each other). Biden told his dinnermates
about the existence of a secret bunker under the Vice President's Residence at
the U.S. Naval Observatory.
Eleanor Clift writes:
Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted
himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the
Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is
now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates
when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He
said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the
hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with
a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications
equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was
where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a
way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were
off the wall.
Despite more than fifteen trips to the VPR over the past five years, and despite
having conducted dozens of interviews about security precautions taken for
Cheney and his staff after 9/11, I was never told such a bunker existed.
I was able to learn and write about Cheney's getaways at Camp David, extra
measures taken for him when he traveled on Air Force Two, and even the use of a
"dummy" plane sometimes used in combat zones. But no one ever mentioned this
secure facility at the Naval Observatory.
The obvious conclusion: Its existence was highly classified.
So what was Joe Biden doing talking about it at the Gridiron Dinner? And, if it
was indeed classified, will this disclosure be referred to the Justice
Department?