House Oversight chair seeks visitor logs to Biden's Wilmington house after discovery of documents marked classified
Washington — The Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is calling for the White House to provide a log of all visitors to President Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, house since the start of his presidency after documents bearing classification markings were discovered there.
Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, head of the oversight panel, told White House chief of staff Ron Klain in a letter Sunday that it is "troubling" that documents bearing classification markings dating from Mr. Biden's time as vice president have been "improperly stored" at his Wilmington residence, and said their discovery raises questions about "who may have reviewed or had access to classified information."
"President Biden's mishandling of classified materials raises the issue of whether he has jeopardized our national security. Without a list of individuals who have visited his residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly sensitive documents," Comer wrote in a letter to Klain. "The committee demands transparency into whether any individuals with foreign connections to the Biden family gained access to President Biden's residence and the classified documents that he has mishandled for years."
Comer is asking the White House to turn over the visitor logs for Mr. Biden's Wilmington house beginning Jan. 20, 2021, as well as all documents and communications related to the searches of the president's homes and other locations by his aides for sensitive government documents, including the identities of the aides conducting the searches.
In addition to the Wilmington residence, Mr. Biden's lawyers searched his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, house for government documents that may have been shipped there during the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration in 2017, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a Jan. 12 statement. No records were found at the Rehoboth Beach property, Sauber said.
Comer told CBS News on Friday — before his request for visitor logs — that the committee would issue subpoenas if the White House doesn't comply with a demand made early last week for records and communications related to the documents marked classified.
The GOP-led Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the documents marked classified that were discovered Nov. 2 by Mr. Biden's personal attorneys in his former office at a think tank in Washington, D.C. Roughly 10 documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Justice Department was also informed of the discovery.
Sauber then revealed last week that a second, "small number" of documents with classification markings were found among "personal and political papers" in the garage at Mr. Biden's house in Wilmington. While the White House disclosed to the public the discovery of the second batch of records on Thursday, they were found by Mr. Biden's personal lawyers on Dec. 20 and retrieved by the FBI.
On Saturday, Sauber then revealed that more documents marked classified were found at the president's Wilmington residence than previously known: A total of six pages with classification markings were discovered in a room adjacent to the garage. The White House initially said it was a single, one-page document that was found.
The revelation of the records from Mr. Biden's tenure as vice president has prompted scrutiny from the GOP-controlled House and the Justice Department, as Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that he appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to oversee an investigation into the documents found at the Penn Biden Center and the president's Wilmington house.
Hur is the second special counsel appointed by Garland to take over Justice Department investigations into sensitive government documents. Jack Smith was selected in November to lead the probe into former President Donald Trump's handling of sensitive documents found at his South Florida residence after he left office.
Federal investigators retrieved more than 300 documents bearing classification markings from Mar-a-Lago, according to court filings. The former president is being investigated for the alleged improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the alleged unlawful concealment or removal of government records.