The Biden administration reportedly began sharing information last week with the “Gang of Eight” about President Joe Biden’s classified document scandal and the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.
Upon direct pressure from Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) after months of stonewalling, the Biden administration has begun to give requested information to the “Gang of Eight” about Biden’s classified document scandal and the raid on Trump’s residence, Punchbowl News reported. The “gang of eight” refers to lawmakers comprised of the top four leaders in Congress and on the Senate and House Intelligence committees.
The Justice Department (DOJ) had previously stonewalled Congress from conducting oversight on the Trump raid after Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed by Joe Biden’s attorney general to investigate the former president’s handling of information.
Warner warned the stonewalling would negatively impact congressional approval of a warrantless surveillance program the Biden administration is desperate to reauthorize. The law is set to expire at the end of 2023.
As the DOJ’s special counsel began to probe Trump, one month later news broke about Biden’s taking of classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center. Days later, more were found at his home in Delaware. Following the revelations, special counsel Robert Hur was appointed to investigate Biden’s mishandling of classified information.
It is unclear why Biden’s attorneys were initially looking for his illegally stashed documents at the Biden Penn Center. Neither the White House nor the DOJ has provided a reason or cause for the search.
Notably, few leaks have occurred about the contents of the classified documents stashed at the Biden Penn Center, contrasting the multitude of Trump raid leaks. But according to one CNN source, the classified documents found at Biden’s home pertain to Iran, the UK, and Ukraine, where the Biden family conducted business deals.
White House officials were reportedly suspicious about how Biden’s classified document scandal was leaked to the press after only a select group of White House and DOJ officials knew about the violation.
The establishment media has reported at least three times that Biden and the DOJ agreed to hide the scandal from public view with likely no plans to disclose it until the scandal was leaked to CBS News on January 9, weeks after the initial trove was found by Biden’s personal lawyers on November 2.
How the White House treated Biden’s mishandling of classified documents contrasts its actions against Trump.
According to documents obtained from the National Archives by America First Legal, Biden’s White House was involved in the raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence through a “special access request.”
On August 8, 2022, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago on the grounds of retrieving alleged classified documents. The establishment media reported Biden administration officials were “stunned” to hear of the unprecedented action. The Archives also alleged it had “not been involved in the DOJ investigation.”
However, documents revealed Monday by America First Legal show the FBI obtained access to the records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ, contradicting what the Archives told Congress.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.