Biden must let Senate do its job on classified documents
Washington Examiner
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Bipartisanship is rare in Washington, but President Joe Biden’s national intelligence director, Avril Haines, managed to unite Senate Democrats and Republicans this week after she declined to show the Senate Intelligence Committee copies of classified documents discovered at the properties of past and present Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
“It is our responsibility to make sure that we, in the role of the intelligence oversight, know if there’s been any intelligence compromised,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) said after a classified meeting of the committee with Haines.
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“Congress will impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents, and that is coming from both parties,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said. “I’m prepared to refuse consent or to fast-track any nominee … until they provide these documents for the Congress to make our own informed judgment about the risk to national security.”
Bipartisan Senate rage at Biden’s lack of reasonable cooperation is justified. His administration chose to make a dramatic show of invading Trump’s private residence, taking pictures of what was found, and then broadcasting them to the world.
Biden is also responsible for failing to inform the public in a timely manner before last November’s election that classified materials once in his possession were found at his office in a think tank. The president has also downplayed the importance of more documents found at his Delaware home. “By the way,” he famously told reporters earlier this month, “my Corvette is in a locked garage. It’s not like it’s sitting out in the street.”
This is not comforting.
It may be that the documents found in Trump’s residence and on Biden’s properties are harmless. The intelligence community overclassifies material. On the other hand, maybe Trump’s classified documents are a threat to security and Biden’s are not — or vice versa. Maybe all the material would be a threat if it fell into the wrong hands. Who knows?
That’s an important question. But so is this one: Who should know? The answer: congressional overseers.
What is clear is that something is broken in the classified document management system. After even more classified materials were found at Vice President Mike Pence’s home, it appears that everyone who served in an executive agency this century might have mishandled documents. This is why it is so important that our elected officials be allowed to do their job and provide democratic oversight of the system.
There are special counsel investigations into Trump and Biden. This should not obstruct Congress in its duty to oversee the administration. Haines has had more than enough time to conclude her “assessment of the potential risk to national security” of the Trump documents. At a minimum, that should be shared with the committee immediately, as should the assessment of Biden’s documents, if not yet the documents themselves.
Senators are not asking for the documents to be made public. Supposedly, the intelligence community trusts the Senate Intelligence Committee with sensitive information all the time. There are procedures to make sure the information in these documents does not leak to the public.
But the public’s interest in the nature of these documents is high and warranted. The Biden administration should change course now and make copies available to the elected representatives of the people as soon as possible.
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