House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) is requesting documents and communications regarding the classified documents that were kept at Penn Biden Center, after finding discrepancies in the public statements made by President Joe Biden’s lawyer.
The committee has been investigating alleged mishandling of classified documents by President Biden during his time as vice president. The documents in question were kept in an “unsecured closet at the Biden Penn Center.”
In January, President Biden’s attorney Bob Bauer stated that “a small number” of classified documents from the Obama administration were “unexpectedly discovered” at Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022. The issue was particularly spotlighted after former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI to retrieve classified documents being kept there.
Mr. Comer now says they have information that President Biden’s documents were discovered in 2021, and several White House staffers were sent to assess and retrieve multiple boxes of documents.
According to the committee, in 2021, President Biden “used significant federal resources, including five White House employees and a Department of Defense employee, to access and secure items at the Penn Biden Center.” This included White House Counsel Dana Remus, Mr. Bauer’s predecessor. She and other White House staff “were central figures in the early stages of coordinating the organizing, moving, and removing of boxes that were later found to contain classified materials.”
White House Staffers
President Biden’s personal attorneys were allegedly sent to collect classified documents on multiple visits during this timeframe. Mr. Comer cited five White House staffers, and said there was “no reasonable explanation” why so many people from the White House were “so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials.”Annie Tomasini, senior adviser and assistant to President Biden, was sent to take inventory at the Penn Biden Center on March 18, 2021.
Ms. Remus contacted Kathy Chung, at the time a Department of Defense official and later assistant to Vice President Biden, to retrieve documents at Penn Biden Center on May 24, 2022. Ms. Chung did so on June 28, 2022.
Mr. Comer pointed out that Ms. Remus contacted Ms. Chung through her private email, “thus evading potential Freedom of Information Act disclosures.”
Two days later, Ms. Remus, an unknown White House staffer; and Anthony Bernal, assistant to the president; went to pick up additional documents. According to an interview with Ms. Chung conducted by the committee, there were so many boxes they could not fit them into their vehicle.
On Oct. 12, 2022, Ashley Williams, special assistant to the president; and Pat Moore, the president’s personal attorney; went to Penn Biden Center to further assess the boxes left. The next day, Ms. Williams returned to retrieve a few of the boxes. That same day, Mr. Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, texted Ms. Chung to let her know that Mr. Moore had begun sorting through the boxes.
Mr. Comer did not reveal how the committee obtained all of the information, though some of it was made known through the interview with Ms. Chung earlier this year.
None of these actions were included in President Biden’s official statements on the timeline regarding his retaining of classified documents.
Mr. Comer also revealed that the committee found Mr. Moore had scheduled a FedEx pickup at Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022, the day Mr. Bauer had stated the National Archives and Records Administration was contacted so that the documents President Biden had allegedly just discovered could be archived.
“The Committee has uncovered that a FedEx worker showed up to Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022, to ‘load the documents and then [take them] down to the loading dock’ to be shipped out. The Committee finds it troublesome that boxes of documents were potentially removed from Penn Biden Center prior to NARA’s arrival and assessment,” Mr. Comer wrote in his letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel.
The attorneys have claimed they retrieved personal items of President Biden’s, but Mr. Comer claims that the White House showed an “obvious” concern in the contents. He noted that the White House’s top lawyer was personally involved in coordinating staff to find out what was in the boxes, and their removal.
Security Issues
Through interviews with Penn Biden Center employees, Mr. Comer said the committee has found that the White House’s statements on the security of the documents is also contradictory.“Although the White House has claimed the boxes were discovered ‘in a locked closet,’ Penn Biden Center unlocked this closet each visit and allowed multiple people—whose levels of security clearance remain unknown—to access the boxes containing classified materials,” Mr. Comer wrote. Boxes were located in Ms. Chung’s office, as well as a closet that “had other boxes.”
In order to sort out the discrepancies, the committee is requesting communications with the named White House staffers as well as transcribed interviews with the staffers.
