SRN NEWS – It appears that the classified documents Joe Biden took from his time as vice president in the Obama administration and stored in a Private Penn Biden Center office weren’t the only sensitive documents Biden took with him in an alleged violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Wednesday afternoon NBC reported that Biden had additional classified documents in a second location. The report aired less than one hour after the end of Wednesday’s White House press briefing by Karine Jean-Pierre in which Biden’s spokeswoman claimed numerous times that the president takes classified information “seriously.”
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was surprised when informed that government records were found by his attorneys at his former office space in Washington days before the midterm elections. He was asked about the issue after the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee requested that the U.S. intelligence conduct a “damage assessment” of potentially classified documents.
Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, Biden claimed his attorneys “did what they should have done” when they immediately called the National Archives about the discovery at the offices of the Penn Biden Center. He kept an office there after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his presidential campaign in 2019.
The White House confirmed that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings” found at the office.
“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said in his first comments since news of the Nov. 2, 2022, document discovery emerged Monday. He added that “I don’t know what’s in the documents” and that his lawyers had suggested he not ask.
Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Mike Turner sent the request to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, saying that Biden’s retention of the documents put him in “potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act.”
Irrespective of a federal review, the revelation that Biden potentially mishandled classified or presidential records could prove to be a political headache for the president, who called former President Donald Trump’s decision to keep hundreds of such records at his private club in Florida “irresponsible. ”
“Those entrusted with access to classified information have a duty and an obligation to protect it,” said Turner in a letter to Haines. “This issue demands a full and thorough review.”
On Tuesday, Rep. James Comer, the new GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent the White House Counsel’s office a letter requesting copies of the documents found at the Biden office, communications about the discovery, and a list of those who may have had access to the office where they were found. The White House didn’t immediately respond to the request.
Haines agreed in September to conduct a “risk assessment” rather than a “damage assessment” of the Trump case.
Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said Monday that after Biden’s attorneys found the records, they notified the National Archives and Records Administration — which took custody of the documents the next day.
A person who is familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly said Attorney General Merrick Garland asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department. Lausch is one of the few U.S. attorneys to be held over from Trump’s administration.
Trump weighed in Monday on his social media site, asking, “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?”
Republicans have just taken control of the House of Representatives and are promising to launch widespread investigations of Biden’s administration.
The revelation also may complicate the Justice Department’s consideration of whether to bring charges against Trump, who is trying to win back the White House in 2024 and has repeatedly claimed the department’s inquiry into of his own conduct amounted to “corruption.”
The National Archives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Spokespeople for Garland and Lausch declined to comment.
Comer also sent a letter to the National Archives requesting records and correspondence relating to discovery of the Biden documents, asserting that “NARA’s inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”
His Democratic counterpart, Rep. Jamie Raskin, said Biden’s attorneys “appear to have taken immediate and proper action.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the American public deserved to know earlier about the classified documents.
“They knew about this a week before the election, maybe the American people should have known that,” Jordan told reporters. “They certainly knew about the the raid on Mar-a-Lago 91 days before this election, but nice if on November 2, the country would have known that there were classified documents at the Biden Center.”
Jordan is among House Republicans pushing for the creation of a “select subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal government” within the Judiciary Committee.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the White House didn’t disclose the discovery of the documents or the DOJ review sooner. CBS was first to report Monday on the discovery of the potentially classified documents.