The National Archives was prevented from notifying the public that classified documents were found at President Joe Biden‘s think tank back in November, raising questions over who stopped the information from coming out.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer raised the question Tuesday night, claiming the only two entities that could give the order to the Archives are the White House and the Department of Justice – putting the onus on either Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Despite Biden’s team claiming they have been ‘transparent’ regarding the classified document scandal, new details emerged Tuesday that the FBI searched his former offices after the initial materials were found.
Documents with classified markings were found at Biden’s Washington, D.C. think tank in early November, just days before the 2022 midterm elections.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky (pictured) said Tuesday that the National Archives was blocked from releasing a prepared statement on the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. in early November
The National Archives prepared a press release to notify the public of the discovery, but was stopped from issuing the statement, Comer revealed.
‘There are only two people that could have given those orders, and that’s either the Department of Justice with Merrick Garland or the White House with Joe Biden,’ the Kentucky Republican told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening.
‘So, it shows right there that this Department of Justice and this White House is interfering with this,’ he added.
The latest revelation comes after Comer’s panel conducted a lengthy interview with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) general counsel Gary Stern.
He also informed the Oversight Committee that he couldn’t tell them who gave the order not to release the statement.
Comer noted yet another double-standard in the process of classified documents between the case involving Biden and the one involving former President Donald Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago residence was raided by the FBI in August.
‘If you go on the National Archives website, there’s pages and pages of press releases and information about the FBI raid into Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents,’ Comer said. ‘But there’s nothing on the website about Joe Biden.’
New information about Biden’s case also emerged Tuesday indicating the discovery of documents wasn’t as much of a cooperative process as previously indicated.
FBI investigators searched Biden’s DC think tank office days after the president’s lawyer identified classified material there.
New revelations also emerged Tuesday that FBI agents searched the Penn Biden office for classified material back in November – a detail previously unknown despite the administration insisting ‘transparency’ through the whole process
The White House and the Justice Department did not disclose the search, which was reported by CBS News, despite the White House’s claim of ‘transparency’ over the rolling discoveries of classified material.
It was not immediately known if any additional documents marked classified were uncovered during the search, which took place in mid-November.
On November 2, days before the midterm elections, a Biden attorney discovered 10 documents marked ‘classified,’ then contacted the National Archives, which alerted the Justice Department.
Comer demanded the Archives come before the Oversight Committee to shed some clarity on the documents saga after the classified materials were found at Trump, Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence’s private residences and offices.
Stern was grilled by lawmakers Tuesday for more than three hours in a transcribed interview with Comer and his panel as Democrat and Republican lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of detail and transparency from the administration on the matter.
In the Democrat-controlled Senate, the Intelligence Committee has lamented that they have not been able to review the documents, yet the press keeps releasing information regarding the materials found in the searches.
While Republicans and Democrats lamented of ‘stonewalling’ from the Justice Department, members of the Oversight panel claim that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines is blocking the release of key details until the agency has concluded its investigation.
News of the FBI search comes as the Biden administration faces new pressure from Democrats to disclose the contents of classified material found at his home and office.
A January 14 statement from Biden lawyer Bob Bauer did not acknowledge the government search, only flagging the government’s ‘inquiry, including taking possession of any documents and reviewing any surrounding material for further review and context.’
The search at the Penn Biden center in Washington, D.C. came days after the initial document discovery in November
The FBI then carried out a search of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home, where more classified materials were discovered in the president’s garage and library
The same garage is home to Biden’s classic Corvette Stingray – along with some boxes and a lampshade
A January 12 statement by White House counsel Richard Sauber noted that the president’s lawyers and DOJ were ‘coordinating closely’ in the search of the president’s Wilmington home.
‘Following the discovery of government documents at the Penn Biden Center in November 2022, and coordinating closely with the Department of Justice, the President’s lawyers have searched the President’s Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, residences — the other locations where files from his Vice-Presidential office might have been shipped in the course of the 2017 transition, Sauber said in a statement. That search turned up classified materials in a garage and one in an adjacent room.
On Friday, January 20, the FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home, uncovering additional classified material.
Top Republicans have called on the government to search the president’s Rehoboth, Delaware, beach house, where Biden’s team says no classified documents were uncovered in its own search.
The White House had fielded questions last week about whether such a search might happen this past weekend, when Biden was at Camp David and in Wilmington, but there are no indications it happened.
‘There has not been a limit of transparency,’ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month during a particularly feisty White House press briefing.
The repeated disclosures come after months of reporting on Donald Trump’s own resistance to government demands to return documents – and the FBI’s discovery under a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago of hundreds of documents marked ‘classified.’
News of the previously unreported FBI search broke as Biden visited New York on Tuesday to tout infrastructure improvements
The president has faced repeated questions about the documents, sometimes scolding reporters, sometimes defending his conduct and other times dismissing the inquiries
Former Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod is among prominent Democrats who have called out the Biden White House for insufficient transparency, in an op-ed where he faulted the team for violating a mantra of crisis communications to ‘fully disclose all the facts’ as quickly as possible.
Bauer’s statement following the Wilmington search this month made clear that the Justice Department took part in the search.
DOJ ‘took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President,’ Bauer said in a statement at the time. He said investigators also took handwritten notes from Biden’s time as vice president.
