In a statement issued on Tuesday, The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability expressed that the National Archives and Records Administration failed to fall in line with a deadline set in place by the committee to hand over any and all materials for additional investigation into the classified documents discovered in locations known to be related to President Joe Biden.
“The National Archives has not produced the requested documents to the Committee at this time,” explained a spokesperson for the committee to Axios. “Chairman Comer’s request still stands and anticipates moving forward with a transcribed interview with NARA’s general counsel soon.”
The committee spokesperson went on to note that The Washington Examiner that investigators sent out by Republicans first anticipated the conducting of a transcribed interview with the federal agency, which would create a timeline and show how the classified information was dealt with.
Republican legislators launched the committee at a point earlier this past month in the wake of a number of classified documents from Biden’s time as Vice President were discovered by his personal legal team inside of his private office located at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank from Washington, D.C., just prior to the midterm elections last year.
After that event was made public, Biden’s attorneys have wound up finding even more classified papers located inside the Biden residence in Wilmington on three separate occasions: an unspecified number discovered hidden in his garage on December 20, one in Biden’s study as of January 11th, and five more found on the 12th of January in the study.
As the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) sent out letters marked for the National Archives and the White House Counsel’s Office as of January 10th, in which the committee issued a demand for the materials because of “Biden’s failure to return highly classified records from his time as vice president.”
Comer explained that the National Archives “instigated a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago — former President Trump’s home— to retrieve presidential records.”
“[Its] inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency,” he expressed, as reported by Axios.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) posed a question about a key detail regarding the classified document scandal surrounding Biden as part of an interview this past Friday with Fox News.
McCarthy questioned as to why Biden had his legal team move him out of that office.
“Yes, we are, and you’re missing one question: They say the attorneys found these documents,” he posited. “Who told the attorneys to look there?”
“Somebody else knew the documents were there all along. Otherwise, why would the attorneys even look?” highlighted McCarthy. “Whoever hires lawyers to be movers?”
Biden fired off a response to the scandal this past week by stating that he has “no regrets” about what he did and that getting constant questions regarding the ongoing investigations “quite frankly bugs” him.
“We’re fully cooperating, looking forward to getting this resolved quickly,” exclaimed Biden. “I think you’re gonna find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do — that’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there, there.”
