The White House pushed back on Republican outrage over the discovery of classified documents at President Joe Biden’s residence and former office, calling the indignation from GOP lawmakers “shamelessly hypocritical.”
“House Republicans have no credibility,” White Houses spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement on Monday. “Their demands should be met with skepticism and they should face questions themselves about why they are politicizing this issue and admitting they actually do not care about the underlying classified material.”
“President Biden is doing the right thing and is cooperating fully with a thorough review, but House Republicans are playing politics in a shamelessly hypocritical attempt to attack President Biden,” Sams continued.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), launched an investigation one day after the White House first disclosed that lawyers had found several classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president in a private Washington office. (The issue is also being investigated by a special counsel appointed last week by Attorney General Merrick Garland.)
After the White House said Saturday that additional classified documents had been found at the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, Comer called on the Biden administration to release more information, including visitor logs. The White House says no such records exist “because it’s a private residence.”
Comer, in appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, defended his decision to investigate Biden, but said it’s “not a priority” for his committee to similarly probe former President Donald Trump. Trump is currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department over his removal of classified documents from the White House and his subsequent handling of those materials.
“I don’t feel like we need to spend a whole lot of time investigating President Trump because the Democrats have done that for the past six years,” Comer told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Comer also told Tapper he’s less concerned with the documents themselves than what he described as “a discrepancy in how former President Trump was treated” by investigators.
There are several key differences between the Biden and Trump situations. The FBI found hundreds of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in August with a search warrant. About 20 classified documents have been found at Biden’s home and former office.
And while Biden’s legal team reported the document discoveries and appear to be cooperating with investigations, Trump failed to return material the National Archives had specifically requested.