In a letter dated Sunday, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, asked the White House to provide by Jan. 30 a copy of who visited Biden’s Wilmington home. A list of people in the White House, as well as documents and “communications related to the search” that serve as Biden’s home.
Comer told CNN’s “State of the Union” that his committee also wants to know who has access to the Pennsylvania Biden Center in Washington near the U.S. Capitol.
Comer said his committee was also looking into what he called “Biden family influence peddling,” including sources of foreign donations and financial support he claimed had come to the Biden family without offering any evidence.
Asked why the committee apparently wasn’t focusing on foreign influence allegations against Donald Trump, Comer said: “I think influence peddling of the Trump administration is going to be part of our overall investigation because Democrats and Republicans Partisans have complained about this with the previous two administrations.”
But Comer appeared to play down expectations that the Republican-controlled watchdog panel would conduct extensive investigations of the previous administration.
“There are so many investigations into President Trump,” Comer said. “I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time investigating President Trump because Democrats have been doing it for the past six years.”
The latest news that Biden has classified documents came Saturday when the White House Another set of classified government material was found at Biden’s Wilmington home, it was revealed. The document discovery is now the subject of an investigation by the Justice Department special counsel. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, as he had done earlier with Trump.
There are substantive differences between the two cases, including Trump’s repeated refusal to turn over documents that federal officials say is being sought, while Biden has voluntarily returned them.
Republicans have largely ignored these distinctions. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said there was a “double standard” in the two cases.
Jordan also falsely suggested that Trump was denied the opportunity to voluntarily hand over classified documents in his possession. “Why is it always the left, the Democrats, who can make decisions, who can go and find information and give it to the government?” he said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that the federal government’s response to Biden, and how it treated Trump this summer after a court-ordered search of his Florida home to retrieve documents, was a critical issue. Why the House chose Trump “a case in point” Republicans this month formed a select committee on the weaponization of the federal government.
McCarthy, who narrowly won the Speaker’s seat with Trump’s backing, said on “Sunday Morning Futures” that the federal government has been “going after people because they have different political beliefs.” Republicans said their new committee could examine whether the administration played a role in targeting conservatives on social media and at school board meetings.
But some Republicans have a more nuanced view of the two cases.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he doubts the classified documents found in the Biden case are highly sensitive. But he added that Biden should have known he had classified documents.
“Every page is labeled with categories,” Stewart said. “It’s not the kind of thing where you sit at your desk and think, ‘Oh, I forgot they were classified.'” Clearly, they are classified. “
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) acknowledged discrepancies in the Trump and Biden investigations, but said Biden was hypocritical when he criticized Trump for mishandling classified documents. “It reminds me of that old adage: If you live in a glass house, don’t throw stones,” Bacon said. “And I think President Biden got caught throwing stones.”
Democrats have sought to highlight the differences between Biden’s and Trump’s actions while acknowledging that Biden’s case is embarrassing.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) suggested lawmakers need more information on whether Biden’s documents have any national security sensitivities.
“I don’t think we can rule that out without knowing more facts,” Schiff told ABC’s “This Week,” adding that “the government is going to need to answer” why it found the documents in November But it wasn’t announced until January.
Schiff, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats controlled the House, said Republicans should refrain from taking actions that would undermine the Justice Department investigation.
“Congress should approach both situations in the same way, that is, we should be briefed by the intelligence community on any potential risks to national security about the location and content of these documents,” Schiff said. “But Congress should not try to interfere with the investigation.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “it’s kind of troubling” that people who “have no problem with what Donald Trump is doing, which is Those who defiantly refused any cooperation” are now “disturbed that President Biden voluntarily and quickly handed over the few documents they found.”
In response to the discovery of the Biden documents, the House Intelligence Committee asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review the documents and conduct a damage assessment — a method of determining whether exposure of classified information would harm sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
Separately, the office has begun reviewing documents found at Mar-a-Lago but has made no public comment on when or whether officials will review documents found at Biden’s think tank and his home.
“We’ve requested that these documents be analyzed for the potential harm they could cause, and I hope we will receive them in the next few weeks,” Stewart said.
