The White House attacked House Republicans in a powerful statement Monday, denouncing the majority of lawmakers in the chamber as “hypocritical” for their treatment of Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents compared to President Joe Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) appeared on Fox News this afternoon, where he blasted the administration for failing to keep visitor logs from Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware — where at least six pages of secret Records of his vice presidency were found.
But White House spokesman Ian Sams claimed Comer and his colleagues had “no credibility”.
“Their claims should be met with skepticism and they should ask themselves questions about why they are politicizing this issue and admitting they don’t really care about the underlying classified material,” he said in a statement obtained by .
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is leading Republicans’ response to the discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden’s private files
“As President Biden has repeatedly said, he takes classified information seriously, which is why he immediately directed his team to ensure the documents were returned to the government.”
The Biden spokesman added in a final shot, “President Biden is doing the right thing and fully cooperating with a thorough review, but House Republicans are playing politics in a shamelessly hypocritical attempt to attack President Biden.”
It comes after Comer told on Monday that Americans “need transparency, not secrecy,” and vowed to keep pressing the administration for more information when the White House revealed it had no visitor logs for Biden’s private home there.
“Like every president in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the White House office told multiple outlets.
“But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitor logs, including publishing them regularly after the previous administration ended them.”
Biden’s White House announced that no public visitor logs were kept at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware
Comer told when asked for an answer: “President Biden has promised to have the most transparent administration in history, but he refuses to be transparent when it matters most.”
“The White House, the National Archives and the Justice Department have withheld from Congress and the American people information about secret records found in unsafe locations from Joe Biden’s time as Vice President. The American people deserve transparency, not secrecy,” said the head of the House Oversight MP.
“We will continue to urge the Biden administration to get answers as to who had access to these classified documents and why Biden aides were allowed to poke around the Wilmington residence following the appointment of a special counsel.”
Later Monday, he stepped up his rhetoric during a television interview on Fox News.
“What amazes me is what the White House said about the fact that they didn’t keep a record of who went to and from the president’s personal residence because that was personal,” Comer said. “Yet for years before he even became president, Democrats released Trump’s personal tax returns.”
Under the President Records Act, all White House documents and records are held in the National Archives
He also called the president’s son Hunter Biden, whose foreign dealings in Ukraine and China have come under intense scrutiny, a possible “national security risk” as Republicans question who had access to the documents while they were at Biden’s home.
Comer sent a letter to Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday, demanding access to all visitor logs kept for the Delaware home.
“Without a list of those who visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents,” the Kentucky Republican wrote in his letter.
The Penn-Biden Center was used by Biden as his personal office from around 2017 until the launch of his 2020 campaign.
Ten top-secret pages were reportedly found there by Biden’s personal attorneys when they cleaned up the office. So far, six have been found at his home in the Wilmington area.
Biden’s political nemesis Donald Trump reacted with glee to the news on Monday.
“The White House has just announced that there are no logs or information whatsoever of visitors to the Wilmington house and the weak, unlocked and unsecured but now very famous garage. Maybe they are smarter than we think!’ Trump wrote on his Truth social app.
“This is one of what appears to be many places where TOP SECRET documents are kept (in a large pile on the damp ground).”
At least six classified documents were found in Biden’s private home in the upscale neighborhood of Greenville, an affluent neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware
The office building that houses the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, DC, where President Joe Biden’s personal attorneys presented documents dating back to Biden’s time as Vice President of the Justice Department.
Timeline of events leading up to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur to oversee the investigation into possible misuse of classified documents
Former President Donald Trump is crowing after the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information
He added of his Florida home, where dozens of classified documents were seized during an FBI raid in August: “Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility with surveillance cameras everywhere and monitored by staff and our amazing Secret Service. I have INFO about everyone!’
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee Biden’s handling of classified documents after the papers from his vice presidency were first discovered at the Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022.
The first 10 had been found in a closet among Biden’s personal belongings as private attorneys cleaned up the president’s old office.
Subsequent searches initially revealed another page found at Biden’s Delaware home, and on Saturday officials admitted five others were found there as well.
The President has pledged to take the matter “seriously” and to work with the National Archives and the Justice Department at every step.
But questions are still piling up about why it took the White House so long to admit the existence of the documents — which it did after CBS News first ran the story about the Penn-Biden Center — and who had access to the papers in Biden’s house.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say during a news conference last week whether visitor logs existed for the Greenville home.
Instead, she pointed out that the Biden administration has expanded transparency regarding White House visitor logs, which had been severely curtailed under Trump.