A new timeline reveals that the White House was aware that Biden had his own document problem prior to unleashing the FBI on former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) revealed in a letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel on Wednesday that Congress has now verified that Biden’s aides knew in March 2021 that the current president had kept government documents in his unsecure university think tank office in Washington, D.C. Later, it would be determined that they contained classified information.
A year later, with the public unaware of Biden’s document dilemma, the Biden White House instructed the National Archives to grant the FBI access to 15 boxes of government memos — some classified — that the 45th president had discovered in his Florida home, thereby accelerating the criminal investigation of the 45th president.
Biden’s White House was thus aware that he had left boxes of documents at the Penn Biden Center a year before he directed NARA to facilitate the FBI’s document-related raid on Trump’s residence.
“The White House and President Biden’s attorney have provided an incomplete and misleading series of events about his stash of classified documents. The real story starts in March 2021, a year and a half before Biden’s legal team said they discovered classified documents. It appears the White House knew there were Presidential Records Act violations long before they were acknowledged publicly,” Chairman Comer said in a statement to Just the News.
“The American people need answers about what was known and when it was known about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents,” he continued. “The House Oversight Committee will continue to pursue the facts and deliver the transparency and accountability that Americans demand.”
Committee chairman and Kentucky Republican James Comer wrote to White House counsel Edward Siskel to complain that the schedule provided by Biden’s personal attorney “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating.”
The White House hid this discovery of classified documents prior to the 2022 Midterm Elections, even as it greenlit the FBI to raid Donald Trump. In January, further classified materials were discovered at the president’s house in Delaware. The mainstream media then reported on the discovery for the first time.
Three witnesses have been interviewed by the committee so far, and their testimony suggests that on five separate occasions, White House staff members such as former White House Counsel Dana Remus and former presidential assistant Kathy Chung, who is now employed by the Department of Defense, visited the Penn Biden Center to conduct an audit, pack up, or remove items. The dates ranged from March of 2021 to mid-October of 2022 for these excursions.
So far, the committee has chosen not to share the transcripts of the interviews with the witnesses.
Comer’s letter goes on, “There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials.”
In April, the Oversight Committee took an interview from Chung and remarked on its import.
Comer (R-Ky.) said that Chung, “provided startling information that undermines the Biden White House’s narrative on the matter.”
“Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington, DC, area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center,” the lawmaker said on April 4.
“At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicles to an office location,” Comer went on.
The committee has asked for transcripts of interviews with Remus, Williams, Tomasini, top first lady adviser Anthony Bernal, and West Wing employee Katie Reilly, suggesting that the scope of the investigation has broadened. The request also includes paperwork and correspondence concerning the documentation. Former Vice President Biden’s assistant Chung, who was an associate of Hunter Biden, was already interviewed by the committee.
A spokeswoman for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee deflected by saying, “Former President Trump’s willful retention of hundreds of highly classified documents, his defiance of court-ordered subpoenas, his reported disclosure of our country’s most sensitive national security information, and false statements to law enforcement should worry the Chair of a congressional committee with jurisdiction over government records.”
According to the spokesperson, “Instead Chairman Comer is using the Committee to focus on President Biden whose complete cooperation with the Special Counsel’s investigation stands in stark contrast, including voluntarily participating in a two-day interview with the Special Counsel, and opening the doors to his Penn Biden Center office and private residence to investigators.”
An aide to the Oversight Committee said that the team has not yet requested access to the confidential documents at issue, but that they intend to do so shortly.
Just days before, in the course of the Justice Department’s investigation into the same matter, special counsel Robert Hur interviewed the president in person. The Congressional investigation appears to be broadening in scope following the presidential interview.
