Issue of Biden’s Handling of Classified Documents ‘Gets Beyond the Politics’: GOP Congressman

President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 13, 2023. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Finding classified documents in properties linked to President Joe Biden poses a concern that “gets beyond the politics,” according to Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.).

Documents dating back to the period when Biden was the vice president have turned up at both the president’s former office at Penn Biden Center in Washington and his Delaware home, including a “small number” in his garage and another page in an adjacent room, according to the White House.

“When you take into account how China is stealing our most sensitive technical information, they’re using it against us, to be this careless with the use of information, to me, disqualifies you, as is whether you are a member of Congress, the Secretary of State or the president of the United States,” Palmer told The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD on Jan. 12.

As a member of Congress, Palmer has to leave his phone outside when entering into the compartment to access classified information, he said.

“I couldn’t take notes. I couldn’t take documents out,” he said, noting that Biden, who wasn’t the president at the time, didn’t have the authority to declassify such information.

The congressman tried to draw a contrast between Biden’s handling of those materials and the case of former President Donald Trump, who is under investigation for possessing materials with classified markings at his Florida home.

“His was in the garage,” he said of the second batch of Biden documents, describing it as a “huge problem.” In the case of Trump, he said, “at least he had it under lock and key, not sitting by his riding lawn mower.”

Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas on July 9, 2021. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

“I don’t think we need to get into the politics of it,” he continued. “I think this should be a bipartisan issue that we need to lock down and make sure that everyone who has a top-secret classification or higher, handles this information properly.”

Palmer also recounted a 2016 hearing about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information when he served on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“She had a private server in her basement that was not secured. It not only contained classified, top secret, it contains sensitive, compartmentalized information, a security clearance above mine—and I have top secret,” he said. “So there’s a long history here on the Democrat side of mishandling classified information.”

China Connection

When asked what was on his mind when he placed “classified material next to your Corvette,” Biden argued that the “Corvette is in a locked garage” so “it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), referring to that conversation on Friday, wondered whether “that’s good enough for national security.”

But what’s more concerning to him is the Chinese funding to the University of Pennsylvania, which houses the Penn Biden Center.

“It appears that was funded by Chinese nationals who are close to the Communist Chinese government. I think that is the real story behind this,” Tiffany told NTD, referring to the tens of millions of dollars in contracts and gifts that the university has received from China.

The Penn Biden Center has denied having taken money from China and said all of its budgets comes from the university.

“Penn is fully compliant with federal law regarding the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts, as foreign gifts are all properly reported to the U.S. Department of Education,” a center spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times in an email.

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) is seen during a ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in a file photograph. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Whether there’s any connection with the Chinese regime and the Biden family’s foreign business interests is a question that Tiffany hopes the newly appointed special counsel could find out.

“Is this part of a bigger picture, is this part of the puzzle, and we really need to dig on that. And I’m sure hoping that this special counsel is going to dig deep.”

Both the House Oversight Committee and Judiciary on Friday began probing into the Biden document issue.

Tiffany acknowledged that the issue of classified information could be over-politicized. But the prosecution of Trump has set the precedent.

“We know that documents are over-classified in every administration, and so you wonder sometimes: is it making a lot out of a little?” he said.

“But the only problem for the Biden administration now is they’ve set the rules, they set the rules with President Trump, now they need to live by those rules.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.