National Archives misses deadline to turn over info about possible 'political bias' in its handling of Biden document scandal



The National Archives and Records Administration failed to meet the deadline to turn over documents to Congress relevant to an investigation into whether political bias played a role in its soft and quiet approach to President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

This failure comes amid concerns that the NARA may be providing deferential treatment to Biden, particularly when compared to how it approached a similar matter involving former President Donald Trump. After all, acting NARA head Debra Steidel Wall was reportedly one of the leading figures who triggered the FBI raid on Trump's residence over allegedly mishandled documents.

What is the background?

Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to acting Archivist Wall on Jan. 10 concerning "a political bias" at the NARA.

"For months, NARA failed to disclose to Committee Republicans or the American public that President Biden—after serving as Vice President—stored highly classified documents in a closet at his personal office. NARA learned about these documents days before the 2022 midterm elections and did not alert the public that President Biden was potentially violating the law," wrote Comer.

"Meanwhile, NARA instigated a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago—former President Trump’s home—to retrieve presidential records. NARA’s inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency," he added.

Comer noted that unlike in the case of Trump, whose residence was raided by armed FBI agents, no search warrant was executed after classified Obama-Biden administration documents were discovered to still be in Biden's possession. Instead, the president's attorneys "quietly" handled the situation with the Department of Justice.

Republicans on the committee wrote to NARA in August, stating, "The seeming weaponization of the federal government against President Biden’s political rivals cannot go unchecked, and if NARA is working to further these efforts, it will be only the latest agency to lose its credibility in the eyes of the American people under the Biden Administration."

Committee member Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) echoed these statements in an op-ed this week, writing, "We can see several systemic failures in oversight that have led to widespread deception," including "the weaponization of a federal agency to hide information from Congress and using the power of the presidency to hide a story until after the midterms."

The committee requested that, by no later than Jan. 24, NARA turn over all documents and communications:

  • between NARA and the White House related to classified documents at the Penn Biden Center;
  • between and among NARA employees related to such classified documents;
  • between NARA and the DOJ related to the documents; and
  • between NARA and any outside entity, including Biden's attorneys.
In his Jan. 10 letter, Comer also clarified that the "Committee on Oversight and Accountability has specific jurisdiction over NARA under House Rule X."

NARA comes up with nada

Jan. 24 came and went, but NARA did not provide the committee with any of the requested documents.

A committee spokesman told Axios, "The National Archives has not produced the requested documents to the Committee at this time," adding that "Chairman Comer's request still stands and anticipates moving forward with a transcribed interview with NARA’s general counsel soon."

Committee Chair Rep. Comer told Newsmax that "there's a problem with how the National Archives does things."

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told Fox News Digital that the NARA has been "far less prominent" during the Biden scandal than during the DOJ's apparent Trump fault-finding mission, underscoring that it "will need to be more transparent with Congress or risk contempt sanctions."

Derrick Morgan, once staff secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney, suggested NARA's silence on Biden and aggressiveness towards Trump indicates a "double standard."

For its possible double standard, the NARA is now facing double scrutiny from both chambers of Congress.

Ahead of the NARA's failure to meet its deadline, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) penned a letter to head archivist Debra Wall demanding "full transparency regarding its involvement, knowledge and role with respect to the existence of these classified and unclassified documents."

The letter cited various instances where the NARA previously declined to provide records that the Biden administration might otherwise want to keep under wraps, including records pertaining to the Biden family's "financial dealings and potential conflicts of interest" as well as records "about then-Vice President Joe Biden's use of non-government email for government business, the transmission of government information to his son, Hunter Biden, and compliance with federal records laws."

The Republican senators indicated they are conducting an "objective review of NARA's involvement" in these matters as well as its "interactions relating to the discovery of records, including those marked classified" found in Biden's homes and offices.

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Report: DOJ won't bother having the FBI monitor Biden lawyers' 'search' for mishandled top-secret documents



The Department of Justice has determined that President Joe Biden's lawyers can be trusted to search his homes for improperly stored classified documents without FBI supervision, insiders told the Wall Street Journal.

This soft and complaisant approach stands in stark contrast to the DOJ's treatment of former President Donald Trump, despite the similarity of the presidents' alleged improprieties.

The FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence with guns drawn. When tearing through the property of the former president, the FBI reportedly showed no deference, taking whatever they wanted, including Trump's passport. FBI agents then parsed through the documents seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence for days after the their tactical raid on the premises.

In the case of Biden's potential mishandling of top-secret and classified documents, no guns have been unholstered. No raids have taken place.

According to the Wall Street Journal, sources familiar with the matter indicated that the DOJ has placed its confidence in the supposed honesty of Biden's lawyers because they had allegedly been cooperating and had turned over the first batch of unsecure top-secret documents in short order.

Biden's legal team reportedly discussed the possibility of having FBI agents present while they conducted subsequent searches, but "the two sides agreed" that the lawyers could dig around the president's Delaware properties in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, then notify the DOJ if anything turned up.

The New York Post reported that the agreement between Biden's legal team and the DOJ was sealed after the discovery of "intelligence memos and briefing materials" related to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom in Biden's private office last fall.

CBS News' Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, "You’ve repeatedly emphasized the need — just as you did today — for independence, for the integrity of the Department of Justice investigation, [which is] one reason why you continue to point us to the DOJ. So I wonder, why then did the White House counsel go to Wilmington to facilitate the handing-over of documents to the DOJ?"

Jean-Pierre noted she appreciated the question, but didn't provide an answer.

Jiang did not relent, however; noting how the White house has repeatedly suggested "how much it is important to this White House to separate the White House from the DOJ’s investigation. ... But the White House counsel was the one to go and facilitate documents, to look for the documents."

The White House press secretary added, "Again, they’ve been working very closely with the Department of Justice."

Biden has reportedly dodged "more aggressive actions by law enforcement" thanks to this "cooperation" between his lawyers and the DOJ.

Law enforcement officials told the Wall Street Journal that what may appear to be the DOJ's deference to the Biden White House may actually be a tactic enabling it to later "take a tougher line, including executing a future search warrant, if negotiations ever turned hostile."

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said, "The outrageous double standard of the corrupt DOJ and FBI, which have been weaponized against Joe Biden’s political opponents, could not be more clear."

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) similarly suggested that this amounts to a double standard:

\u201cWhy was President Trump\u2019s home raided but not President Biden\u2019s? \n\nWhy did the FBI take pictures of President Trump\u2019s so-called classified documents but not President Biden\u2019s?\n\nAmericans are tired of the double standard.\u201d
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Rep. Jim Jordan) 1673972839

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week, stating, "The double standard here is astounding. The underlying behavior at issue—a President’s retention of old classified documents dating back to a past presidency—is materially the same in both cases."

"But in President Trump’s case, that retention triggered an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, rationalized with a thicket of partisan doublespeak. President Biden has not experienced anything remotely similar," he added. "Your Department's apparent disparate treatment of these two cases thus far isn't especially surprising, because today's FBI leadership is growing more partisan by the day."

While Biden appears to have the DOJ's cooperation, there are yet some with Democrat affinities who regard the president with disdain, such as Walter Shaub, ethics chief in the Obama administration.

TheBlaze reported that Shaub recently suggested that Biden's "retention of classified records reflects an inexcusable neglect of the most basic security protocols."

A handful of other Democrats including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), have suggested that the president's handling of classified documents was shameful, with some calling it "an embarrassment."

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'It's an embarrassment': Democrats express shame over Biden's apparent mishandling of secret documents



The recent revelations about President Joe Biden's improper retention of top-secret documents have prompted some Democrats to embrace absurd conspiracy theories about who is really to blame. Others have downplayed the severity of the scandal.

A handful of Democrats have now admitted that the recent turn of events painting the Democratic president as a hypocrite are "embarrassing."

What are the details?

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "it's certainly embarrassing" that Biden should be caught having done precisely what he castigated former President Donald Trump for allegedly doing.

"From my perspective, it's one of those moments that obviously they wish hadn't happened," said Stabenow.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) concurred that the debacle ought to be a source of shame, telling "Fox News Sunday" that "It's an embarrassment, no doubt about it."

"I can only – in fact, I don't need to imagine, I know exactly what President Biden said when he was informed that these documents were found in his office in Washington, and that was an 'Oh,' followed by a four-letter expletive," added Garamendi.

Fellow California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told ABC's "This Week" that Congress cannot "exclude the possibility" that Biden, through his mishandling of classified documents — more of which turned up over the weekend in the president's Delaware home — compromised national security.

Extra to special counsel Robert Hur's investigation into possible impropriety committed by Biden, Schiff suggested Congress should assess "whether there was an exposure to others of these documents, whether there was harm to national security," but intimated that such an assessment would also be used to look into Trump's handling of classified documents.

\u201cRep. Adam Schiff, a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, tells @JonKarl that Attorney General Garland made the right move by appointing a special counsel in Biden documents case. \n\n\u201cI still would like to see Congress do its own assessment.\u201d https://t.co/ndQmL4Gr7U\u201d
— This Week (@This Week) 1673794965

Schiff previously suggested that Trump's storage of sensitive documents in a guarded, locked environment — not a garage — was an indication that the former president was a public menace with a cavalier attitude toward hard-won critical information.

Schiff also penned a letter to the director of national intelligence, stating, "Those entrusted with access to classified information have a duty and an obligation to protect it."

Congress and the security community should "take all necessary steps to protect classified information and mitigate the damage to national security done by its compromise is critically important," Schiff added.

Concerning the investigation into the Democrat president's potential crimes, Schiff said over the weekend, "I'd like to know what these documents were. I'd like to know what the [special counsel's] assessment is, whether there was any risk of exposure and what the harm would be and whether any mitigation needs to be done."

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) underscored the gravity of the situation.

"Classified documents are to be taken seriously and they are to be handled with a great deal of care, and no one is above the law," Warnock told "This Week," adding, "So I’m glad to see the Justice Department doing its work, and we ought to let that work proceed. … Nobody’s above the law. And we need to get to the bottom of this so that we don’t see this kind of thing happen again."

When pressed on whether the White House — which knew about the classified documents before the midterm elections — should have told the public earlier, Warnock answered, "The Justice Department is engaged in the investigation and that's one of the questions that I think they will explore. And I don't want to get in front of that investigation."

One Clinton campaign veteran told The Hill, "Everyone can say what they want, but this weakens him, full stop. ... This is just one of those things that will stick around and won’t go away."

The Clinton aide added, "It just creates the question. 'If he's being this frivolous with the documents in the garage with his Corvette, who knows what else he's doing?'"

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod told Reuters the Biden scandal was an "embarrassment"; "basically ... a huge gift to Trump."

Not all are convinced that Democrats' expressions of embarrassment and concern over Biden's latest scandal are in any way sincere.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) suggested last week that the timely discovery and announcement of these documents and the resultant efforts by Democrats to distance themselves from the president may altogether be "a way to get rid of Joe Biden."

"They don't want this man to run for president again. He's a recipe for disaster in the next presidential election," said Jackson.

\u201cRonny Jackson says he believes that the Biden docs that were found is part of a conspiracy by Democratic operatives to set Biden up and force him to resign because they don\u2019t want him to run in 2024.\u201d
— Ron Filipkowski \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Ron Filipkowski \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1673531852

Trial lawyer Neama Rahmani suggested this is an unlikely strategy, given that the threat of criminal charges would serve as a disincentive for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race.

Rahmani told Newsweek that if Biden "is really worried about being prosecuted, that makes it more likely he will run in 2024, not less."

Whether or not it would be sound strategy, the timing of these revelations has nevertheless prompted some to wonder, especially since the documents have allegedly sat unsecure in various locations, including by Biden's gas-guzzling Corvette, for years.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted, "What prompted them to look for Joe Biden’s classified documents?"

\u201cWhat prompted them to look for Joe Biden\u2019s classified documents?\u201d
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Rep. Jim Jordan) 1673887512

Despite acknowledging he "could drop dead tomorrow," Biden told MSNBC's Rev. Al Sharpton in September that he was "going to do it again ... I'm going," referencing a 2024 attempt at reelection.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports/Pulse Opinion Research poll, 52% of the nation disapproves of the job Biden is doing, with 42% strongly disapproving and only 26% strongly approving.

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