White House hammered on timing of Biden classified documents disclosures
Katherine Doyle
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The White House deflected questions about its handling of the discovery that President Joe Biden may have mishandled classified materials after new files were found at the president’s Delaware residence.
More documents were discovered late last week and revealed over the weekend, days after Biden’s press secretary said a search of the president’s residences had been completed. The announcement raised new questions about the White House’s transparency in the case as the Justice Department investigation gets underway.
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Asked whether she knew more documents had been uncovered while briefing reporters last week, Karine Jean-Pierre said she was sharing information from the White House counsel’s office “and not going beyond what is currently happening.”
“I was repeating what the counsel was sharing,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday.
Jean-Pierre said she first learned of the classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center when CBS News began asking about them last week. She reiterated that Biden “was surprised” to learn that any secret materials were in his possession.
Yet Jean-Pierre would not say whether Biden, who traveled to his Wilmington home on Friday, was taking part in the search and referred the question to the White House counsel’s office.
Jean-Pierre did not respond when asked if she was “sorry” for telling the public that the search for classified documents was complete and pushed back on the suggestion that the drip of information has hurt her credibility.
“What I’m concerned about is making sure that we do not politically interfere with the Department of Justice,” she said.
The press secretary’s comments follow days of criticism directed at the White House over its handling of the discovery that Biden had classified files in his possession in non-secure locations and while out of office. An attorney representing Biden defended the president’s handling of the matter in a statement Saturday.
“The president’s attorneys have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity,” said Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney. “These considerations require avoiding the public release of detail relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing.”
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The White House began to adopt a newly combative tone on Tuesday when it accused House Republicans of waging “political stunts” in response to the Justice Department investigation.
“These are the same Republicans who didn’t make a peep when it came to the former president’s handling of material,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams told reporters on a call, referring to Donald Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI.
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