Gang of Eight gets long sought-after access to Trump, Biden, and Pence classified docs: Report
Ryan King
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After months of feuding with the Biden administration, some members of Congress are finally getting access to the classified documents it sought, per a report.
In a victory for Congress, the Biden administration began sharing the material last week that was recovered from the residencies and former office’s of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, and former Vice President Mike Pence with the “Gang of Eight,” a source told Puck News.
MARK WARNER WANTS ‘MORE INFORMATION’ ABOUT TRUMP AND BIDEN CLASSIFIED DOCS
The so-called “Gang of Eight” is a group that includes the chairman and vice chairman of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as well as the top four leaders in both chambers.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) embarked on a months-long pressure campaign lobbying for access. They were adamant that they needed to be able to access the documents to inform its oversight of the intelligence community.
Warner and Rubio accused the Biden administration of stonewalling their requests. Warner previously said “all things will be on the table” appearing to hint at a potential subpoena of the intelligence community if it continued to drag its feet.
“We need more information about these documents. And more importantly, we need to [learn about] what the intel community has done to mitigate the harm. And we’re still in conversations with the Justice Department,” Warner told CBS’s Face the Nation last month.
Last year, the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of material from Trump and quickly discovered content with classification markings. It then relayed the matter to the Justice Department, which opened a review. Authorities have since recovered over 300 documents with classified markings from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, per court records.
Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed to spearhead the DOJ’s review of the situation and investigation of potential violations of the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice. Trump has denied wrongdoing and contended that a president can declassify files even by thinking about it.
Then, earlier this year, reports emerged that Biden’s team found sensitive documents from his vice presidency days at a think tank and at his residence in Delaware. Special counsel Robert Hur was appointed to examine the situation. Classified files also surfaced at Pence’s residence in Indiana.
Prosecutors for the DOJ revealed that the files confiscated from Mar-a-Lago during the bombshell FBI raid last August included signals and human-sourced intelligence. Members of the intelligence committee argued that they likely already had access to some of those documents in the past.
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Both Rubio and Warner insisted that their oversight will not foil the DOJ’s criminal investigations surrounding the classified files. They have also asked the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a damage assessment of the situation.
The Washington Examiner contacted a spokesperson for comment.