Biden faces intensifying scrutiny over classified documents found at his home

Nick Schifrin:

The White House confirmed today there are no visitor logs for the president's Delaware home, where the president's lawyers found additional documents with potentially classified markings.

Laura Barrón-López brings us here — is with me here now and brings us up to speed.

Laura, welcome.

So, what did the White House say today about these visitor logs?

Laura Barrón-López:

So, White House spokesperson for the White House Counsel's Office Ian Sams said that there are no visitor logs for the president's Wilmington home, that that is a personal residence, and, in keeping with past traditions for presidents, that's personal.

They're not going to keep records there, but that the White House, of course, has visitor logs, and they reinstated that after President Biden's predecessor did away with those. This comes, this response from the White House comes after House Republicans, in particular, Congressman Jim Comer, who's going to lead the Oversight Committee, said that — requested those logs and asked for them, even though they never asked for them in the case of the seizure of classified documents from President — former President Trump.

Nick Schifrin:

And, obviously, this is after additional documents were found in Wilmington over the weekend.

What do we know at this point about those?

Laura Barrón-López:

So, we have a little bit more of a fleshed-out timeline here that was partially provided by President Biden's private lawyer.

So, on November 2, 2022, Biden's attorneys find documents at the Penn Biden Center, immediately notify Archives. November 9, 2022, DOJ launches its assessment. Then December, 20, 2022, Biden's — President Biden's attorneys find documents at his Wilmington residence inside the garage and they notify the DOJ.

Then, just last week, January 11 of this year, Biden's attorneys find one potentially classified document, again, one single document in the Wilmington residence. And then, January 12, DOJ takes possession of those five additional documents found at the Wilmington residence, and that was a new revelation over this weekend, was that those — was those five additional documents.

One thing here is of course, that the White House is facing a lot of questions about transparency. That's a political issue for them because the president has prided himself on having a transparent White House. But, legally, there is nothing requiring the White House or even former President Trump's in his case or DOJ or National Archives to disclose when they found these documents to the public.

Nick Schifrin:

Mostly, of course, those questions that you just mentioned are coming from Republicans, who are in charge of the House now, and they say they plan to investigate President Biden's handling of these documents.

What are those questions? What are those Republicans focusing on?

Laura Barrón-López:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy just said today that, of course, he wants as much information as possible.

But Congressman Jim Comer, who I mentioned earlier, who's going to chair oversight, admitted that this isn't necessarily about classified documents for House Republicans.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY):

At the end of the day, my biggest concern isn't the declassified documents, to be honest with you.

My concern is how there's such a discrepancy in how former President Trump was treated by raiding Mar-a-Lago, by getting the security cameras, by taking pictures of documents on the floor, by going through Melania's closet, vs. Joe Biden. They're like OK, your personal lawyers who don't have security clearance, yes, they can go through.

Laura Barrón-López:

Congressman Comer said right there that this is about the difference in treatment.

Well, there's a very real factual reasons why there — President Trump was treated differently. He withheld these documents for more than a year. And so did his team. And DOJ, National Archives expended a lot of different steps to try to get these documents back. And it wasn't until a judge signed off on a search warrant because they had real concern that the former president was obstructing the ability to obtain these documents and was also potentially violating the Espionage Act.

I think it's also important to note that, as Republicans widely are calling for more information on Biden, they have not said that they would investigate former President Trump's classified documents at all.

Nick Schifrin:

And, quickly, Laura, how are Democrats in Congress responding at this point?

Laura Barrón-López:

Right.

So, Congressman Adam Schiff, as well as a number of other Democrats, have been calling for a damage assessment. And here's what Congressman Schiff had to say today — sorry, this weekend.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA):

I think Congress ought to handle both situations the same way. And that is, we have to get a briefing from the intelligence community about any potential risks to national security of where those documents were and what they contained.

Laura Barrón-López:

So, just like they called for in the case of President Trump's classified documents, Democrats are again calling for a damage assessment, which is very common when classified documents are found where they're not supposed to be found.

Nick Schifrin:

Laura Barrón-López, thank you very much.

Laura Barrón-López:

Thank you.