White House mum on disclosure timing

The White House Counsel’s Office on Tuesday wouldn’t answer why it failed for greater than two months to publicly disclose that classified government documents had been present in a personal office in Washington, D.C., that had been utilized by President Joe Biden before his election in 2020.

“That is an ongoing process under review by [the Department of Justice], so we’re going to be limited in what we will say right now,” Ian Sams, spokesman for White House Counsel’s Office, told NBC News when asked why the Biden administration didn’t disclose earlier the invention in November of the classified material.

“But we’re committed to doing this the suitable way, and we are going to provide further details when and as appropriate,” Sams said.

Biden, during a gathering with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico, didn’t reply to a matter from reporters concerning the documents, which were found by personal lawyers.

NBC News later reported Tuesday that the variety of classified documents found on Nov. 2 on the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement numbered fewer than a dozen.

Former President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that the DOJ kept quiet concerning the documents’ discovery so as to not affect the final result of November’s congressional elections when his fellow Republican candidates underperformed expectations.

“Why didn’t the ‘Justice’ Department announce the Highly Classified documents present in the Biden Office before the Election?” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site, Truth Social.

Trump is under criminal investigation by the DOJ for failing to give up government documents, including many marked classified or highly classified, when he left office.

The documents were present in Trump’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, during a raid in early August by the FBI, three months before classified records were present in the Biden office.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, on Tuesday said his committee needs to be briefed by administration officials concerning the discovery of the documents in Biden’s office. 

“Our system of classification exists as a way to protect our most vital national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened each at Mar-a-Lago and on the Biden office as a part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said.

“From what we all know thus far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is actually different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the federal government,” Warner said. “But again, that is why we have to be briefed.” 

Also Tuesday, Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the highest Republican on the House Everlasting Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to ask her to conduct an instantaneous review and damage assessment concerning the Biden documents.

“This discovery of classified information would put President Biden in potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act,” Turner wrote.

“Those entrusted with access to classified information have an obligation and an obligation to guard it. This issue demands a full and thorough review,” he wrote.

The invention of the documents in reference to Biden, a Democrat, was first reported Monday afternoon by CBS News.

Soon after, a lawyer for Biden said that a “small number” of records marked classified were found Nov. 2 in a locked closet in an office on the Penn Biden Center.

That was six days before the midterm elections, when Democrats were attempting to win enough seats within the House and Senate to retain majority control of each chambers of Congress. Democrats actually gained a seat within the Senate, and narrowly lost control of the House to Republicans.

Biden used the office when he was a personal citizen between January 2017 and January 2021.

The documents found look like from the Obama administration, through which Biden had served as vice chairman for 2 terms, in response to Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden.

Sauber said on the identical day the documents were discovered, the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives and Records Administration of that fact.

“The Archives took possession of the materials the next morning,” Sauber said in a press release.

He also said that Biden’s personal attorneys have been cooperating with the National Archives and the DOJ “to be sure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately within the possession of the Archives.”

After the documents were discovered Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed by Biden, tasked John Lausch, the highest federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois, with reviewing how the classified material ended up on the Penn Biden Center. Lausch is certainly one of just two U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump to have remained in office under the Biden administration, and Garland tapped him for the task to avoid the looks of a conflict of interest.

The opposite Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who stays in office, David Weiss of Delaware, is overseeing a criminal investigation of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in reference to tax issues and his business dealings.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-In poor health., on Tuesday praised President Biden and Garland for the way they handled the invention of the documents. 

“I applaud President Biden and Attorney General Garland for his or her skilled, nonpartisan handling of this case,” Durbin said in a press release.

“Unlike former President Donald Trump, who allegedly obstructed efforts to get better a whole bunch of classified documents, the handful of classified documents reportedly found on the Biden Center were immediately sent to the National Archives and President Biden is allowing the Justice Department to operate freed from political interference,” Durbin said.