Topline
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation on Friday into President Joe Biden’s potentially wrongful handling of classified Obama Administration documents, as legal problems mount for the president, who has provided little explanation for why the records were in his possession.
President Joe Biden listens to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speak in the Oval Office of the … [+]
Key Facts
The probe is focused on how federal authorities have handled the case, with the panel demanding all communications between the Justice Department, FBI and the White House.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed it is unclear when the Justice Department may have learned about the documents, suggesting the DOJ may have “actively concealed this information from the public on the eve of the 2022 elections.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Thursday that prosecutors became aware of a first tranche of documents on the evening of November 4—four days before the midterm elections—but an initial investigation wasn’t launched until November 14, following the completion of an FBI assessment of the records.
The letter also states the Justice Department’s investigation of Biden appears “to depart from how it acted in similar circumstances” when investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of records, which resulted in an FBI raid at Mar-A-Lago that uncovered hundreds of classified records.
The letter omits critical context differentiating the cases, such as the fact Trump allegedly spent months dodging a subpoena requesting the records, while the White House claims Biden’s team immediately turned classified documents over to authorities.
The committee also demanded all communications relating to the appointment of a special counsel, as well as all documents mentioning how Biden’s lawyers came to be in possession of the classified records.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
What To Watch For
The letter set a January 27 deadline for materials to be handed over.
Key Background
Garland on Thursday appointed Trump-era U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the “possible unauthorized removal and retention” of sensitive government records. The White House said this week that classified documents dating to the time Biden served as vice president were found in November inside a private office he previously used at the Penn Biden Center in D.C. and in December inside the garage of his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The White House only acknowledged the findings after media reports were published about them, and the Biden Administration has offered few comments about the situation other than saying it is “cooperating fully” with the investigation and it is confident the records were just “inadvertently misplaced.” The Presidential Records Act requires presidents and their administrations to turn over all sensitive records to the National Archives upon a president leaving office.
Tangent
House Republicans have greenlit several probes since taking over the chamber, including an investigation into the FBI as part of a so-called “weaponization of the federal government,” a probe into the business dealings of Hunter Biden—the president’s son—and an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
Further Reading
Biden: ‘I Don’t Know’ Contents Of Classified Documents Found In Private Office (Forbes)
Republicans Launch House Committee To Investigate FBI—Including Agency’s Handling Of Trump (Forbes)
Mar-A-Lago Raid: FBI Investigating Whether Trump Violated These 3 Statutes (Forbes)
Special Counsel Appointed To Investigate Biden’s Handling Of Classified Material (Forbes)
Who Is Robert Hur, The Special Counsel Investigating Biden’s Classified Documents? (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/01/13/biden-classified-docs-house-republicans-launch-investigation-into-records/