WASHINGTON — A Republican lawmaker leading investigations of President Joe Biden’s administration called on the White House to turn over visitor logs to his home in Delaware after classified documents were found at the residence.
The letter by House Oversight Committee chair James Comer to White House chief of staff Ron Klain is the latest salvo by Republicans after a series of revelations last week that’s raising political and legal risks for Biden as he considers seeking a second term in 2024.
“President Biden’s mishandling of classified materials raises the issue of whether he has jeopardized our national security,” Comer said in the letter to Klain released by his office. “Without a list of individuals who have visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents.”
The administration’s handling of the document discoveries and comparisons with former President Donald Trump’s tug-of-war with the National Archives over a larger trove stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort dominated U.S. political talk shows Sunday. Some Democrats agreed that the administration should be more forthcoming with information on Biden’s case.
“I think every American has an interest in seeing that classified documents are properly handled by whoever’s president and by any administration,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the senior Democrat on the oversight panel, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And all we’re looking for is equal treatment.”
Biden’s personal lawyers discovered classified materials beginning on Nov. 2, six days before the midterms. In the first public acknowledgment, the White House counsel’s office confirmed on Jan. 9 a CBS News report that about 10 pages of classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Global Diplomacy and Engagement, a think-tank Biden established after Barack Obama’s presidency.
“Well, we don’t know exactly yet whether they broke the law or not,” Comer said on CNN. “I will accuse the Biden administration of not being transparent.”
The White House said Saturday that Biden’s lawyers discovered more classified material at his Wilmington, Delaware, home than previously announced — five additional pages that were found last week during a search of a room adjacent to Biden’s garage, bringing the total to six at that location.
In the letter to Klain, Comer criticized that “personal attorneys searched the Wilmington residence knowing that the Department of Justice was already investigating” even before Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel on Jan. 12 to probe the matter.
Comer on Friday attempted to rope in Biden’s son, Hunter, suggesting he may have had access to the documents found at Biden’s Wilmington home. Hunter Biden has publicly acknowledged struggles with drug abuse, and Republicans are separately investigating whether he sought to enter business deals revolving around his access to his father.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said the question of whether Biden’s handling of the documents put national security at risk — an argument raised over Trump’s classified materials — remains on the table.
“I don’t think we can exclude the possibility without knowing more of the facts,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding he’d welcome an assessment by the intelligence community. “I’d like to know what these documents were.”
