WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, at a letter White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday called for the release of visitor logs at President Joe Biden’s Delaware home.
Comer’s letter came a day after the White House said more classified Obama administration documents had been found at the president’s Wilmington residence after two batches of searches were unsealed earlier.
«Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,» Comer wrote in the letter to Klain. «As Chief of Staff, you are the head of the Executive Office of the President and have a responsibility to be transparent with the American people on these important issues related to the White House’s handling of this matter.»
The committee, he wrote, is «concerned» that White House aides and Biden’s personal attorney searched the Wilmington home after the Justice Department released its assessment and demands «transparency about whether anyone with foreign connections with the Biden family gained access to President Biden’s information.» residence and classified documents».
Comer was pressed on why his committee has focused on Biden’s documents but not those of former President Donald Trump in an interview on CNN’s «State of the Union» on Sunday. The former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was searched by the FBI last year after several attempts to obtain the classified documents.
“I don’t feel like we should spend a lot of time investigating President Trump because the Democrats have been doing it for the last six years,” Comer said.
His letter was issued amid discoveries of classified Obama-era documents last week. The White House has confirmed that three batches of records have been found so far: a «small» number in a Washington office used by Biden, another set in the garage of his residence, and six pages in a room adjacent to the garage.
In an earlier letter sent to the White House on Friday, Comer asked whether Hunter Biden, the president’s son, might have had access to classified documents found at his Delaware residence. “The committee is concerned that President Biden stored classified documents at the same location where his son was residing while engaging in international trade agreements with adversaries of the United States,” Comer wrote.
Comer’s latest lawsuit comes days after the House Judiciary Committee, now led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in the new Republican-majority House, announced Friday that it had opened an investigation into the Obama-era classified documents found at Biden’s home. Delaware home and his former Washington office.
Jordan sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding all documents and communications between the Justice Department, the FBI, and the White House about the discovery, as well as information about Garland’s appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel to oversee the case.
Biden allies have emphasized that this case differs significantly from the ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s possession of classified records at his Florida home. They say Biden returned the documents once they were discovered, while the former president failed to fully comply with a subpoena and withheld some records, prompting a search warrant to be executed in Mar-a-Lago in August.
In an interview on NBC News’ «Meet the Press» on Sunday, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., drew a distinction between Biden and the Trump special counsel investigation.
«I mean, it’s totally different right now,» Stabenow said, noting that unlike trumpBiden «isn’t saying that in some magical way when he thinks of classified documents that he can declassify.»
The president is cooperating with the Department of Justice and the National Archives amid the discovery of the classified documents, he said. “They will not defy subpoenas or require FBI raids in order to obtain the documents.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called Comer’s request «completely hypocritical» during an interview on ABC News’ «This Week» on Sunday.
He said Congress should handle the Biden and Trump cases in the same way, including briefings by the intelligence community on any potential national security risks about where classified documents are kept, but lawmakers «should not try to interfere.» with the investigations.
“I think, unfortunately, that is Mr. Comer’s object,” Schiff said. “He showed no interest in investigating the much more serious situation with around 100 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago with evidence in the public domain of obstruction. Now all of a sudden he’s interested in investigating President Biden.»
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the oversight committee, said Comer’s request should not become “political football.
“People who say there was no problem with what Donald Trump did, which was defiantly refusing any cooperation in turning over hundreds of classified documents, are upset by President Biden’s quick and voluntary handover of a handful of documents they found,” Raskin. he said, adding that he hopes the committee «maintains a sense of symmetry about our analysis of these situations and a sense of proportion about the underlying crimes.»