President Joe Biden‘s possession of classified files in an old private office has spurred a Justice Department investigation – and the threat of further probes from House Republicans’ new majority.
The White House confirmed on Monday evening that Biden’s personal attorneys found ‘a small number of documents with classified markings’ when clearing out the president’s old office in the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022.
They were found in a locked closet in the Washington, DC-based think tank, the statement revealed.
Republican lawmakers seized on the news, first reported by CBS, and new House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer of Kentucky pointed out the stark difference between how Biden is being treated and the August FBI raid on Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago resort for the classified documents he took.
‘Is the White House going to be raided tonight? Are they going to raid the Biden center? I don’t know,’ Comer said to reporters on Monday.
The office building housing The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, where President Biden’s personal lawyers discovered several classified documents in November 2022
The Justice Department reportedly tapped one of two Trump-appointed US attorneys still in office to look into the file discovery.
There are still questions left to be answered on why the office was being cleaned out so late into Biden’s term, and how come the news came out months later.
‘They created this legal controversy to target Trump and now Trump and Biden are in the same legal boat,’ Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told DailyMail.com.
‘How did the records get to that office space? Why were lawyers packing for him? That’s unusual. Who had access to these classified records?’
He added, ‘The other big issue is, why was hidden from American voters just before the election?’
How were the files found?
The files were found in early November when Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center, a University of Pennsylvania-backed think tank, by his personal lawyers.
Biden had used the space as an office between 2017 until the beginning of his 2020 campaign, according to the White House.
‘The documents were discovered when the President’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space,’ the statement read.
Biden’s lawyers notified the National Archives that same day and have cooperated with the federal government ever since.
How is this different from Trump?
The CBS report that broke the story of Biden’s classified file possession was a significantly more muted outing than the early FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on the morning of August 8.
But Biden’s White House statement makes clear that he and his team have cooperated with the relevant authorities.
President Biden has yet to weigh in on the matter himself despite being asked by reporters
By contrast, the Trump raid came after months of back-and-forth between the National Archives, Justice Department and Trump lawyers, during points of which officials later disclosed they believed the ex-president’s allies were being untruthful.
Even the president’s personal handling of the matter differs from his predecessor’s. Biden dodged a question on the file discovery during an event with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday.
Trump, however, has criticized the investigation into his handling of classified documents as a ‘witch hunt’ and sought to discredit it through legal and public means. He’s even lambasted the special counsel appointed to look into his investigations, Jack Smith, and his family.
But Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton argued that both the Biden and Trump document probes could set a troubling precedent for a commander-in-chief’s ownership of his White House records.
‘I think eventually you’re gonna have to cut it off because, you know, you can’t take the legal position that the president doesn’t have a right to manage his own records. That’s not what the law is,’ Fitton told DailyMail.com.
Is this being investigated?
Multiple reports have indicated that the Justice Department has appointed U.S. Attorney John Lausch to review the documents recovered from Biden’s old office.
Lausch is one of two Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys still serving. The other, U.S. Attorney from Delaware David Weiss, is currently tasked with investigating the the finances of the president’s son Hunter Biden.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was raided by the FBI in connection with documents he took from the White House when he left
Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. while the FBI searched for classified documents kept in Trump’s residence.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are also threatening to act swiftly with their new chamber majority.
Oversight Chair Comer told reporters on Monday night that he would be sending a letter to the National Archives and White House counsel’s office inquiring about the documents.
And on Tuesday, incoming House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner has asked for a national security ‘damage assessment’ regarding the classified files.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, a Democrat, requested a formal briefing on the matter.
What questions does Biden still need to answer?
President Joe Biden has so far been silent on the matter, dodging reporters’ questions on the classified files as recently as earlier on Tuesday.
But a number of Republican lawmakers have questioned why the delay between the documents’ discovery and when the incident was made public.
GOP Rep. Don Bacon told reporters it appeared ‘political.’
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called on Biden to discuss what he knew about the documents and when ‘under oath’ during an interview with DailyMail.com.
