WASHINGTON (AP) — In a letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requested the release of visitor logs from President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware.
Comer’s letter came a day after the White House announced that more classified documents from the Obama administration had been discovered at the president’s Wilmington residence, following the previous disclosure of two batches of records.
“Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the visitor log for the Wilmington residence,” Comer wrote in his letter to Klain. “As Chief of Staff, you are the head of the President’s Executive Office and bear responsibility for being transparent with the American people on these critical issues concerning the White House’s handling of this matter.”
He wrote that the committee is “concerned” that White House aides and Biden’s personal attorney searched the Wilmington home after the Justice Department launched its investigation, and that it wants “transparency into whether any individuals with foreign connections to the Biden family gained access to President Biden’s residence and classified documents.”
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Comer was pressed on why his committee has focused on Biden’s documents but not on former President Donald Trump’s. The FBI searched the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last year after several attempts to obtain classified documents.
“I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time investigating President Trump because the Democrats have been doing it for the past six years,” Comer said.
His letter was issued in the wake of the recent discovery of Obama-era classified documents. The White House has confirmed that three batches of records have been discovered thus far: a “small” number in a Washington office Biden used, another set in his home’s garage, and six pages in a room adjacent to the garage.
Comer previously asked the White House in a letter dated Friday whether Hunter Biden, the president’s son, could have had access to classified documents discovered at his Delaware home. “The Committee is concerned that President Biden kept classified documents at the same residence where his son lived while conducting international business with US adversaries.” “Comer put pen to paper.
Comer’s request comes just days after the House Judiciary Committee, now led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in the new GOP-majority House, announced on Friday that it had launched an investigation into the Obama-era classified documents discovered at Biden’s Delaware home and former Washington office.
Jordan wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding all documents and communications about the discovery between the Justice Department, the FBI, and the White House, as well as information about Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel overseeing the case.
Allies for Biden have emphasised that this case is very different from the ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents at his Florida home. They claim that after the documents were discovered, Biden returned them, whereas the former president did not fully comply with a subpoena and withheld some records, prompting a search warrant to be executed at Mar-a-Lago in August.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., made a distinction between Biden and Trump’s special counsel investigation in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“I mean, it’s totally different right now,” Stabenow said, noting that unlike Trump, Biden “isn’t saying that somehow magically when he thinks about classified documents that he can declassify them.”
She stated that the president is working with the Justice Department and the National Archives in the aftermath of the discovery of the classified documents. “They’re not going to defy subpoenas or conduct FBI raids to obtain the documents.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, called Comer’s request “completely hypocritical” on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
He stated that Congress should handle Biden’s and Trump’s cases in the same manner, including briefings from the intelligence community on any potential threats to national security regarding where classified documents were kept, but lawmakers “shouldn’t try to interfere with the investigations.”
“Unfortunately, I believe that is Mr. Comer’s goal.” “Schiff stated. “He showed no interest in looking into the far more serious situation involving about 100 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and evidence of obstruction in the public domain. He’s suddenly interested in looking into President Biden.”
Comer’s request should not be turned into a “political football,” according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the oversight committee.
“People who say there was no problem with what Donald Trump did, which was to defiantly refuse any cooperation in turning over hundreds of classified documents, are upset about President Biden’s voluntary and rapid turnover of a handful of documents that they discovered,” Raskin said, adding that he hopes the committee will “keep a sense of symmetry about our analysis of these situations and a sense of proportion about the underlying offenses.”
