(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) President Joe Biden claimed ignorance and feigned classic mobster memory-loss on Tuesday when he again dodged any explanation for why classified documents from his time as vice president were found in a closet at a Biden think tank with major ties to China donors.
Calls for full-scale investigations intensified as more information was revealed about the scope and significance of the nearly dozen classified documents, some reportedly marked top secret, which included records about Ukraine, Iran and the U.K. from the Obama-Biden administration and its myriad controversies involving those and other global hot spots.
The classified documents were discovered by Biden’s personal attorneys in an office that Biden had used at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The documents were discovered days before the pivotal midterms in November, turned over to the National Archives, but never made public.
Biden’s think thank has received prolific funding in donations from China, raising more questions and concerns.
“It is apparent that the Biden Center is beholden to China for its operations,” said National Legal and Policy Center Chair Peter Flaherty, when the group in 2020 sought an investigation into those ties. “This has an insidious [e]ffect on shaping the programs it produces.”
Those ties are taking on renewed significance with the discovery of Biden’s classified documents.
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s failure to return vice-presidential records—including highly classified documents—to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in violation of the Presidential Records Act,” committee chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., wrote on Tuesday to White House counsel.
“Reporting indicates documents retrieved from the personal office of Joe Biden included documents designated as ‘sensitive compartmented information . . . which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources,’” Comer wrote. “The Committee is concerned that President Biden has compromised sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents.”
The committee is also launching a parallel investigation to determine why the National Archives or the Biden administration didn’t publicly disclose in November that the classified documents had been discovered. The NARA probe will also focus on the different treatment the agency gave Trump and Biden over archive materials.
“For months, NARA failed to disclose to Committee Republicans or the American public that President Biden—after serving as Vice President—stored highly classified documents in a closet at his personal office,” Comer wrote in a Jan. 10 letter to the acting archivist of the United States.
“NARA learned about these documents days before the 2022 midterm elections and did not alert the public that President Biden was potentially violating the law.”
Comer’s letter continued:
“Meanwhile, NARA instigated a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago—former President Trump’s home—to retrieve presidential records. NARA’s inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-N.Y., called it “incredibly concerning” that it took so long “for these documents to surface.”
“My reaction is pretty simple,” he told CNN. “I’m wondering why the vice president of the United States had classified documents outside of the hands of the intelligence community.”
Biden’s classified documents scandal comes on the heels of the regime’s militarized FBI raid on Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago to seize an alleged stash of classified documents. The raid has been used as another tool to further the long-running and multiple witch hunts of Trump.
“Why was there a raid on Mar-a-Lago, but now this story just kind of seeps out and everybody’s saying ‘Oh, we just want to get down to the bottom of it and everybody is giving the benefit of the doubt,” Donalds said of the double-standard.
Rep Byron Donalds drops Truth NUKE on Joe Biden over possession of Classified Records as VP— IMPEACHMENT?!🔥 pic.twitter.com/h3ivqzLE4g
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 10, 2023
After initially refusing on multiple occasions to address the document controversy, Biden on Tuesday continued to duck and dodge.
Biden admitted that he “was briefed about this discovery, and surprised to learn that there were any government records taken there to that office.”
“But I don’t know what’s in the documents,” he said. “My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes, they’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives. And we’re cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished some and there’ll be more detail at that time.”
Comer wants plenty of “more detail” and his letter to White House counsel demanded that the oversight committee receive within two weeks documents and information to include:
- All documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center
- All internal documents and communications regarding the documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center
- A list of all people who had access to President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center
- All documents and communications related to the handling of the classified material by President Biden’s personal lawyers—including but not limited to their security clearance status
- All documents and communications between or among the White House and the Department of Justice or NARA regarding the documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center
“President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, also planned to share an office with an individual affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, which raises questions about who else had access to these highly sensitive documents because of President Biden’s ‘totally irresponsible’ actions,” Comer added with a parting shot at Biden’s previous condemnation of Trump.
FLASHBACK: Biden on classified documents being found at Mar-A-Lago: “How could that happen? How could anyone be that irresponsible?”pic.twitter.com/MlFeCNNQVR https://t.co/4AD0kH6pcY
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) January 10, 2023
