Oversight Committee eyes legislative fix to mishandling of classified documents
Sarah Westwood
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House Oversight Committee members are working across the aisle on a legislative solution that would address how top officials pack up their papers at the end of their time in office after a spate of high-profile cases involving mishandled classified material drew the attention of lawmakers.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said Monday in remarks at the National Press Club that he and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) had agreed to work on reforms to the way officials take stock of records at the end of an administration.
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His comments came after former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, and former Vice President Mike Pence each acknowledged housing classified information in their personal homes.
Biden and Pence have said their storage of classified documents was inadvertent, while Trump has claimed he declassified all the material in question before leaving office.
Attorneys and aides for Biden have suggested the sensitive material in question, papers dating back to his time as vice president and senator, accidentally ended up mixed in with personal and routine business papers at Biden’s private office and home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Top officials are generally expected to comb through their records and hand over official ones to the National Archives after leaving office.
However, that process is often left up to the discretion of the officials and their teams. In the Biden, Trump, and Pence cases, the production process still left behind papers with classified markings improperly.
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Comer has also accused the National Archives of bias in handling the Trump and Biden investigations differently.
Critics charge that the National Archives and the Justice Department approached Trump far more aggressively about missing presidential papers than they did Biden.