Republicans on Tuesday wanted to know why President Joe Biden revealed classified documents from his vice presidential days in his think tank only after the midterm elections, with one calling it a “cover-up.”
“If you’re covering up before an election,” Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, “that’s probably a point that needs to be emphasized.”
He said the fact that the White House didn’t say, “a damn thing, until after the election I look political.”
Republican Rep. Don Bacon (left) called it a “cover-up,” while Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (right) said, “Maybe the American people should have known about it.”
House Republicans are demanding the Justice Department treat Joe Biden the way they treat Donald Trump
How the Biden documents were discovered
NOVEMBER 2: 10 documents were found while Biden’s lawyers were packing up the DC think tank office to leave.
The files were allegedly in a folder in a locked cabinet, in a box with other unclassified documents.
NOVEMBER 8: Biden and his party perform better than expected in midterm elections.
NOVEMBER 18: The Justice Department announces that Jack Smith, former chief prosecutor at the Special Court in The Hague, will lead an investigation into Trump’s storage of classified documents at his Florida home.
JANUARY 9: The Justice Department announces it has launched an investigation into how the classified documents ended up in Biden’s think tank.
Biden says he wasn’t aware secret documents were being held there, and his supporters point out that his own lawyers turned them over – noting that Trump’s team struggled to keep his stash.
The White House announced late Monday that Biden’s attorneys discovered 10 classified documents at his former office at a Washington think tank on Nov. 2.
That was six days before the midterm elections, in which Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, but not in the landslide that many had predicted.
The delay in announcing the discovery has sparked anger at the GOP, with many warning they expect the Justice Department to treat Biden the way they treat Trump.
“President Biden has declared that taking classified documents from the White House is “irresponsible”. Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department and the National Archives have made compliance with the Presidential Records Act a top priority, said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who is set to become speaker of the House of Representatives.
“We expect the same treatment for President Biden, who appears to have kept unduly classified documents in an insecure environment for several years.”
And Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the new House Judiciary chief, declined to say if he would investigate the matter, but said the American people should have known before they cast their ballots in November.
“I think the other thing that’s honestly interesting is that they knew about it a week before the election,” Jordan said. “Maybe the American people should have known about it.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice is investigating the matter and deciding whether to appoint a special counsel, like the one investigating former President Donald Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents.
Garland has asked the US Attorney in Chicago to review the 10 files discovered by Biden’s personal attorneys at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Trump was among the many Republicans demanding answers and said Tuesday it was time for Biden to have a special counsel too.
The former president pointed out on Monday that his own home was searched by the FBI because classified documents were being held there.
“When will the FBI raid Joe Biden’s many homes, maybe even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,” he wrote on social media.
A special counsel would give the White House some sort of political cover, allowing officials to turn down Republican requests for an investigation by saying the Justice Department was investigating.
Spokesman Kevin McCarthy expressed disbelief at the timing of the discovery Monday night.
‘Oh, really? Did you just find her? After all these years?’ he told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“President Trump has never been in office and had just left, came out. Here is an individual [who] spent his last 40 years in office and inherited it from the vice president.’
“It just goes to show that they were trying to be political towards President Trump,” he added.
Biden was in Mexico City Monday for a meeting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and refused to answer shouted questions about how the documents got to the offices.
As the press was ushered out of the boardroom in Mexico City, a reporter called out, “Mr. President, are there any answers to the discovery of classified documents?”
The President didn’t respond.
Joe Biden looks down at his briefing files Monday in Mexico City as a reporter shouts a question about the classified documents found at his Washington DC offices of his think tank. Antony Blinken, the Foreign Secretary, looks up as the press pack is carried out
Classified materials included some top-secret files called sensitive compartmentalized information, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.
The White House special counsel said in a statement Monday, ‘The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Justice Department in the discovery of what appears to be Obama-Biden administrative records, including a small number of documents bearing classified markings.’
It’s unclear what the classified documents contain, but their discovery follows last year’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and comes as Republicans begin their investigation into the Biden family.