I reported previously that the Justice Department had reached a “shared understanding”, which meant that the Biden White House would keep the discovery of classified documents about Biden under wraps.
To me, that sounds like a cover-up. The White House should have made it clear that they were going to do so before the election. Instead, they kept the news secret and didn’t release any information until CBS exposed the matter.
What about the National Archives and Records Administration? (NARA) was informed by the Penn Biden Center about the first finding on November 3rd.
They spoke out strongly about Donald Trump and issued numerous press releases. Why didn’t the group speak out about Joe Biden’s classified documents, and why did they not comply with House Oversight Committee’s requests for documents?
Let’s not forget about the cover-up, because what the Republicans just discovered is quite bad.
James Comer (Republican from Kentucky), the Chair of the House Oversight Committee, stated that NARA was prevented from issuing a prepared media release regarding the discovery of classified documents. In a lengthy transcript interview, Gary Stern, NARA’s general counsel, stated to the Committee that he was unable to reveal to them why he had ordered them to not release a statement.
“So we asked our general counsel why no press releases were sent to Joe Biden after it was established that he had classified documents.”
And the counsel stated, “that he had done press releases”. “But he was told he couldn’t publish them.”
“So, we asked him who gave him those orders.” He said that he couldn’t. There are two possible people who could have given those orders to him, and they would be Merrick Garland from the Department of Justice or Joe Biden at the White House.
“This shows that the Department of Justice and the White House are interfering in this matter and treating Donald Trump differently than Joe Biden.”
Comer stated that there were “pages upon pages of press releases and information regarding the FBI raid into Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump’s possessions of classified documents.” Mr. Comer claimed. “But the website doesn’t contain any information about Joe Biden.”
This means that either the White House or the DOJ gave the order to Biden and prevented Americans from learning about it before the election. Stern is unable to answer their questions now. That’s nonsense. They are Oversight — he is not compromising any investigation by telling them this. He must give that answer. This is not only a cover-up, but it’s also a clear example of double standards in how they handled the Trump case. Why is the Trump case not being resolved? Is it okay to release press releases about Trump’s case but not about Biden?
Comer said that NARA was not preventing the White House from talking about or being transparent about documents. It’s not the National Archives. It’s the Department of Justice. Comer stated that Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice is responsible. I disagree with Comer a bit. Or it’s Biden or his team telling DOJ what to DO.
As we’ve seen, it’s not just the DOJ that is causing the problems. Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, has stated they are unable to provide classified documents to Congress in order to determine the extent of the national security damage. This is not just the DOJ, as the DNI doesn’t have DOJ control. DNI stated that they could not tell the Senate Intelligence Committee the contents of the documents until special counsel investigations had been completed. Both sides of the Committee felt that this was not satisfactory as it does not allow them to perform their duties. Senator Mark Warner (D.VA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R.FL), the Chair, and Vice Chair of this Committee stated that they could endanger the money of the intel community if they continue to withhold the documents. Other House attempts to obtain information about the documents have been rebuffed by the DOJ, which claimed it could hinder the investigations.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D.MD) attempted to spin the response by claiming that they needed to be aware of the integrity and validity of the investigations. He argued that any suggestion that the National Archives was not cooperating in the Committee’s investigation is utterly false, and unfair.
They still released press releases about Trump. Sorry, but that excuse doesn’t work.
