Democrats express alarm over classified Biden documents: ‘I’m very concerned’

Democrats are expressing dismay over the controversy over President Biden’s classified documents, with some criticizing the president for his short stature and his staff for being irresponsible.

“I’m very concerned,” said Sen. John Tester (Monte), one of several incumbent Democrats who will face potentially tough re-election races next year in the GOP’s strong states in the presidential election.

“We have to get to the bottom of what the hell happened and why it happened,” he said.

“It’s about national security,” Tester added, saying investigators need to find out “whether this jeopardizes our national security.”

January Biden was plunged into revelations after the revelation of classified documents found in his former office and home. More recently, a search of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, found 11 more documents on Friday.

The drip-and-drop nature of the finds has left Democrats and Republicans alike wondering if new documents will be found, and at times has thrown the White House off balance.

Biden emerged from the 2022 midterm elections in a stronger position after the Democrats won the Senate seat and contained their losses in the House of Representatives. Democrats still see Biden as their most likely standard-bearer, and lawmakers in his party have been quick to match his handling of classified documents with former President Trump dealing with his own controversies.

At the same time, there is no doubt that the issue raised some questions from Biden and the White House, just as his team was preparing to move forward with the president’s expected announcement later this year.

Senator Joe Manchin (DW.Va.), who, like Tester, is up for re-election next year in a state that Trump easily won in 2020, criticized the sloppy handling of classified information as “incredible” and “utterly irresponsible.”

Biden’s attempt to brush off last week’s construction scandal by saying “there isn’t there” also drew a taunt from Manchin.

On Monday, he told CNN “that’s just not a good statement,” adding that “we just don’t know” what secrets might have been compromised.

Criticism from Manchin is hardly unheard of, but Sen. Dick Durbin (R-Ill.), who represents a safer state for Democrats, was also somewhat critical on Sunday. He said the controversy “belittled” Biden and noted that the president rightly felt “embarrassed by the situation.”

Durbin on Monday said of the White House: “They weren’t careful about handling classified documents.”

“When I think about how we treat them at the Capitol in comparison, whoever was in charge didn’t follow the basic rules,” Durbin said of the handling of classified documents.

Durbin said he never took a classified document out of his office, “let alone one out of the building.”

Still, Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, refrained from speculating whether Biden committed a potential crime, telling reporters, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Republicans in the House of Representatives are saber-rattling on the issue, signaling that they intend to use their newly gained oversight powers to examine the Biden papers story more aggressively than they have studied the Trump controversy.

Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, demanded that the Secret Service turn over all information it has about visitors to Biden’s Delaware home since he served as vice president. . .

The request, made to Secret Service director Kimberly Cheetle on Monday, came after Comer demanded that the residence’s visit logs be handed over. The White House said last week that no such records exist.

Later Monday, White House Counsel Stuart Delery wrote to Comer that the administration did not have documents seized by the National Archives and the Justice Department as part of an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified material.

Delery promised to “take into account the legitimate interests of the oversight” in response to Comer’s request.

One GOP strategist said Republicans would aggressively pursue Biden given the Trump controversy.

“The House is going to have a field day with investigations because the Biden administration has been so outspoken in its criticism of Trump for precisely this,” said Brian Darling, a former Senate aide.

Darling said the House can vote on articles of impeachment if the special counsel or House investigators think Biden has broken the law or endangered national security.

“It’s possible. It depends on how the House hearing goes. I think it’s entirely possible that there will be an impeachment discussion because the Democrats have seemed so open to the idea of ​​impeaching President Trump and we’ve seen a lot of payoff from a lot of things that have happened.” when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, like kicking committee members,” he said.

Durbin told reporters he expects House Republicans to overdo it in trying to topple Biden, as they did when they tried to blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the deaths of four Americans at the US diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. .

Republican Senator John Thune (SD) said Biden’s possession of classified documents now effectively “totally neutralizes” the Democrats’ attack on Trump for possessing classified materials in Florida.

“I’m not sure I understand all the laws regarding classified documents. I know the applicable procedures, but it seems to me that the Ministry of Justice will have to look into all this, and I think that the situation is still evolving now,” he said.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said careful handling of classified documents should always be a top priority and stated, “All circumstances will be examined…. So there is a message that no one is above the law.”

“The rule that I strictly follow is not to take documents out of the room,” he said. “There is obviously a lot of information coming in and I want to wait and see what the facts are.

But Wyden also gave Biden some political cover by making a distinction with Trump.

“One point that I don’t find controversial is that President Biden voluntarily cooperated and the former president did not,” he said.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who faces a competitive re-election in a Republican-leaning state, urged the administration to be as transparent as possible.

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“There is nothing that would be a betrayal of the national interest, he is not trying to hide anything, but they must reveal all this,” he said. “He has to deal with it and end it.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) expressed disappointment that media attention to the classified documents scandal threatens to overshadow the Congressional agenda.

“It’s being looked at to the nth degree,” he said. “What worries me is that I think that we are wasting a lot of effort on something that has a special prosecutorial look.[ing] into it, and in the end it seems like all you’re going to find is some sloppiness. We have real problems to work on,” he said.

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