The US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on preserving and protecting Democracy on November 2, 2022 in Washington, DC. Photo: AFP

US Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden's garage-gate or "document-gate" - his improper possession of classified documents - marks a dramatic moment when an incumbent president and his predecessor are both being probed by a special counsel at the same time.

Chinese observers believed that the US "politics of veto" is further decaying into a "politics of retaliation", where mutual attacks go beyond political views and become increasingly personal. The latest round of witch-hunting, which is dragging the US Department of Justice (DOJ) into the mud, just adds to proliferating evidence that lays bare a dysfunctional US' political system.

A farce

Garland appointed Robert Hur on Thursday to investigate Biden, who admitted that a second set of classified government documents from the Obama administration, during which Biden served as vice president, were found in a storage space in the garage of Biden's Delaware home, CNBC reported on Thursday.

The latest disclosure comes three days after Biden's special counsel, Richard Sauber, confirmed media reports that attorneys for the president found a first batch of classified documents from the Biden administration on November 2, 2022 in an office at a Washington think tank that Biden had used as a private citizen, according to the CNBC report.

The documents reportedly include intelligence involving Iran, Ukraine and the UK.

Garland in November 2022 appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.

CNN reported on Thursday that the special counsel investigation of Biden, along with the aggressive new Republican-led House of Representatives, means the incumbent president may be on the defensive for the next two years.

Republican Mike Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday to ask her to conduct an immediate review and damage assessment on the first batch of Biden documents, the CNBC reported.

On Thursday, Republican Kevin McCarthy, who was just elected House Speaker after an embarrassing 15-round vote not seen in a century, said, "I think Congress has to investigate this."

"What's the difference in what President Trump did versus what we now know President Biden did?" asked James Comer, the incoming House Oversight Committee chairman. "We want to know exactly what documents were taken by both President Trump and now President Biden and want to know if they're gonna treat President Biden any differently than they treated President Trump," the CBS reported.

Besides mutual political attacks, analysts noted a trend of mainstream US media tending to downplay the severity of Biden's case, in contrast to their treatment of Trump's case.

Trump's family real estate business was ordered on Friday to pay a $1.6 million criminal penalty for its conviction on tax fraud and other charges. The verdict branded the company a felon, exposed a culture that nurtured illegality for years and handed political ammunition to Trump's opponents, the New York Times reported.

Diao Daming, an expert on US studies and associate professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday that despite the enactment of the Presidential Records Act in 1978, Biden and Trump's cases regarding classified documents more than four decades later exposed the loopholes in US law enforcement and supervision.

There are apparent problems with the institutional framework that the US boasts about, he added.

Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out a loophole in US legislation on restraining a president's acts and handling a president's misconduct. "Even a criminal suspect can be a presidential candidate" and it is too difficult to successfully impeach a president, the expert said.

Trump's situation was clearer, as he faced criminal charges and has left the post of president, while Biden's case was a bit more complicated as he is incumbent president and the documents date back to his time as vice president.

The DOJ has no right to question Biden, and it remains to be seen how the two "classified documents" cases will unfold, Lü said, predicting that the investigations may "end up nowhere."

According to Diao, there is a possibility that Democrats and Republicans will achieve a dangerous balance in this round of witch-hunting.

But if Republicans can dig out more, they will not let go of the opportunity to attack Biden and his administration, which will generate more uncertainty over power struggles in Washington and the 2024 presidential election, analysts said.

Republicans had previously outlined a broad range of investigative targets focused on President Joe Biden and his family's business dealings.

Comer said that in the 118th Congress, his House Oversight Committee will evaluate the status of Biden's relationship with his family's foreign partners and whether he is a President who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence, the CNN reported.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (C-L) arrives at the New York Supreme Court for the sentencing hearing of the Trump Organization on January 13, 2023 in New York City. A jury last month found the Trump Organization guilty and convicted the organization on charges of conspiracy, criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and filing false tax returns in a scheme to defraud the state. Photo: AFP

Further decadence

The White House has hit back at the accusations. "Instead of working with President Biden to address issues important to the American people, like lower costs, congressional Republicans' top priority is to go after President Biden with politically motivated attacks chock full of long-debunked conspiracy theories."

Without control of the Senate, Republicans are less capable of moving forward their own legislative agenda. Therefore, the GOP will act like a destroyer in the House, using its power of veto to sabotage Biden's and the Democrats' agenda, Diao said.

Observers shared the view that the two-party system in the US is becoming increasingly radical and destructive to the overall political system.

Diao noted that future politics in the US will not just be the "politics of veto," but the "politics of retaliation," which will focus on attacking each other's sense of character and ethics.

It's not only about political dysfunction, but also a state of utter hostility between people, Diao added.

Citing the recent deadlock before McCarthy's election as House Speaker, Lü said that the two parties' fights are not only prolonged, but the internal divisions within each party are growing wider and wider, jointly contributing to the political polarization and radicalization.

Going against the greater good of the whole party, a minority of politicians prefer to maximize their own political power. This is a systemic problem at the heart of US democracy, Lü said.

This essential defect has led to fragmentation within the two parties and challenged the sustainability of the US' two-party system, the expert said.

In other words, it is more apparent than ever that the US' political system, which the country used to be proud of, is being weaponized and eroding the integrity of the system itself, analysts said.