House Oversight chairman demands visitor logs to Biden home, says Archives stonewalling probe
"The Archives isn't being transparent with the American people, " Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., tweeted late Sunday.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is pressing President Joe Biden to release visitor logs to his Delaware home where classified documents were found while accusing the National Archives of stonewalling his investigation.
"The Archives isn't being transparent with the American people, " Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., tweeted late Sunday.
The agency that preserves presidential documents "has yet to provide @GOPoversight with a simple briefing on its handling of classified docs," Comer added. "So many questions remain unanswered. I will use the power of the gavel to get answers."
Comer also sent a letter Sunday to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain demanding that he release the visitor logs for Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence as well as all communications about properties searched for classified documents and those conducting the searches.
“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is continuing to investigate President Biden’s mishandling of highly classified documents. It is troubling that classified documents have been improperly stored at the home of President Biden for at least six years, raising questions about who may have reviewed or had access to classified information," Comer wrote Klain.
"Additionally, President Biden’s personal attorneys, who do not possess security clearances, and White House staff continue to access and search the President’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware for classified documents. Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log," he added.
You can read the letter here:
The White House said Monday there are no visitor logs for the home.
"Like every President in decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal," the White House Counsel's Office said in a statement to Fox News. "But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them."
Biden’s personal attorneys first discovered classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank where Biden worked after his vice presidency, on Nov. 2, and alerted the National Archives, which two days later informed the Justice Department about the discovery. Since then, three separate discoveries of classified materials were found in Biden's garage and home in Wilmington.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has since appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate how the documents came to be improperly stored at the two insecure locations.
Comer said he was concerned by the timeline released by the White House showing Biden lawyers continued to search and find documents on Biden properties after the DOJ and FBI were involved.
“The Committee is also concerned White House aides and President Biden’s personal attorneys searched the Wilmington residence knowing that the Department of Justice was already investigating the matter,” he wrote Klain. “...President Biden has returned to Delaware this weekend without any reported law enforcement ever conducting an independent search for classified materials.”