DOJ declined to participate in the search.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed Biden’s personal attorneys to collect classified documents without security clearances or oversight.
- Biden’s legal team discussed FBI oversight with the DOJ and concluded that Biden’s attorneys would “inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.
- Anonymous sources claim Biden’s legal team was able to avoid FBI oversight by immediately handing over the documents when initially discovered.
- The “voluntary” action thus allowed the attorneys to proceed with their investigation without DOJ involvement.
- When Biden’s legal team found a classified document, which led them to others, “they cleared the area and did not look further,” said Biden’s attorney Bob Baur.
- The White House has not yet released a statement explaining why Biden’s personal attorneys were searching Biden’s Delaware home and the Penn Biden Center.
DOCUMENT HYPOCRISY:
- Attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School Jonathan Turley questioned why Biden opted to use his lawyers to handle classified documents when the president “has a host of people who regularly handle classified material.”
- White House spokesman Ian Sams argued Republicans were “playing politics” in their attack against the Biden documents.
- Voices on the right have been spotlighting the differences between the Mar-a-Lago raid, which was complete with “SWAT-like officers,” as PJ Media describes, and the lack of law-enforcement present in the Biden document cases.
- House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) noted the double standard between the document handling and pressed for visitor logs of all who came to Biden’s Delaware home.
- “President Biden promised to have the most transparent administration in history but he refuses to be transparent when it matters most,” Rep. Comer told Fox News.
- “The White House, National Archives, and the Justice Department withheld information from Congress and the American people about classified records found in unsecure locations from Joe Biden’s time as vice president,” he added.
BACKGROUND:
- American Faith reported that one of the locations housing classified materials, the Penn Biden Center, received millions of dollars from Chinese donations.
- Ohio Representative Mike Turner (R) urged U.S. intelligence to conduct a “damage assessment” over “potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act,” regarding the Penn Biden Center documents.
