Mark Warner calls for briefing on both Trump and Biden’s document controversies
Ryan King
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Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) requested a briefing on President Joe Biden’s classified document controversy.
Warner’s request echoed a similar response he had to the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, which he noted again on Tuesday, and comes in tandem with House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner’s (R-OH) call for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a damage assessment on the situation.
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“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” the senator from Virginia said in a press release.
Warner has been frustrated that his panel was not briefed on the Mar-a-Lago classified document saga in which 300 documents with classified markings were confiscated from former President Donald Trump’s estate in Palm Beach, Florida, according to an NBC producer. He had been joined by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in demanding an ODNI briefing of the Mar-a-Lago situation last year.
A bombshell report Monday revealed that Biden’s lawyers flagged roughly 10 documents while cleaning out his office last November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, a foreign policy think tank. The documents stemmed from his time as vice president and featured “sensitive compartmented information” and briefings about Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom, per CNN.
“From what we know so far, [Biden’s situation] is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed,” Warner added, underscoring the difference between Trump’s and Biden’s situations.
Turner’s request for an ODNI review excoriated Biden’s handling of the material.
“This discovery of classified information would put President Biden in potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act. Those entrusted with access to classified information have a duty and an obligation to protect it,” Turner wrote to the ODNI.
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Biden refrained from answering questions about the debacle while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday morning. Richard Sauber, the president’s special counsel, said Monday that Biden was complying with the proper authorities and reached out the National Archives and Records Administration shortly after the discovery.
Sauber noted that Biden’s lawyers turned the documents over on their own initiative. Biden had used the office where they were discovered periodically from 2017 to his 2020 campaign in his capacity as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania, which was affiliated with the think tank.
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Trump is facing an investigation from the Justice Department, which is examining possible obstruction of justice and violations of the Espionage Act. The review is being led by special counsel Jack Smith. The former president has denied wrongdoing in his case, but he castigated Biden while emphasizing that vice presidents lacked the power to declassify material, unlike presidents.