A “two-tier” system of justice.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told reporters Monday night that the handling of the discovery of classified documents by President Joe Biden’s lawyers that were taken from the White House six years ago is a display of a “two-tier” system of justice.
On Monday, Fox News confirmed that a batch of records from Biden’s time as vice president, including a “small number of documents with classified markings,” were discovered at the Penn Biden Center by the president’s personal attorneys on Nov. 2, according to Richard Saubel, special counsel to the White House.
The attorneys found the documents in a locked closet while preparing to vacate office space at the center, which the president used from mid-2017 until he began the 2020 campaign.
Comer told reporters that the handling of these documents is a stark contrast to the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last year in search of classified documents taken after Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says the committee will investigate the Biden classified documents. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“Is the White House going to be raided tonight?” Comer asked. “Are they going to raid the Biden center? I don’t know.”
“This is further concern that there’s a two-tier justice system within the DOJ with how they treat Republicans vs. Democrats … certainly how they treat the former president vs. the current president,” Comer added.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. (Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images/File)
A political ploy.
Comer said that after the Mar-a-Lago raid, according to the research his office conducted, they found that “every president had accidentally packed documents that may or may not be considered classified.”
“But they weren’t raided,” he added.
Local law enforcement officers are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
Comer said the Oversight Committee plans to send a letter to the National Archives, and depending on where the investigation leads, would be open to holding a hearing on the matter.
“President Biden has stated that taking classified documents from the White House is ‘irresponsible,'” Comer said in a statement. “Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice and National Archives have made compliance with the Presidential Records Act a top priority.”
“We expect the same treatment for President Biden, who has apparently inappropriately maintained classified documents in an insecure setting for several years,” Comer added.
The FBI raided Trump’s Florida residence over the summer.
Machine-gun toting agents posted up at Mar-a-Lago while the FBI rummaged through Trump’s home looking for classified documents.
The Washington Post recently reported (after the midterms) that the DOJ believes Trump took his White House records to Mar-a-Lago as ‘mementos.’
WaPo reported that Trump never intended to sell or use the documents as leverage. Of course, we have known this the entire time and WaPo is finally admitting the FBI raid was all a political ploy.
Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned a U.S. attorney to review the roughly ten classified documents that were found in an old office of President Joe Biden, CBS News reported on Monday.
The classified documents are from Biden’s vice-presidential office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, which is within close proximity to Capitol Hill.
The classified documents were found by Biden’s personal attorneys just days before the midterms on November 2, according to Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber.
Sauber said the White House “is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records.”
Once Biden’s attorneys found the documents, they notified the National Archives, who reportedly referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), leading to Garland’s appointment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to investigate how the classified documents ended up in Biden’s old office.
Sauber said:
The President periodically used this space from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign. On the day of this discovery, November 2, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives. The Archives took possession of the materials the following morning.
The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys. The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.
