In an effort to learn more about records that were discovered in Mr. Biden’s home and at a Washington, D.C., office he used after serving as vice president, House Republicans are requesting two years’ worth of visitor logs from his Delaware residence. Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee and a Republican from Kentucky, wrote to White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday, saying, “Given the critical national security implications, the White House must share the Wilmington residence’s visitor log.”
Mr. Comer also asked for proof of searches made by Biden aides, along with information about the aides’ names and the times of the searches.
Regarding whether it would abide by the request, the White House declined to comment. In honor of MLK Day, Mr. Biden visited Dr. King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church when he was in Atlanta. However, the White House withholds visitor data for trips to Mr. Biden’s other houses. The Trump administration had stopped publishing visitor logs for visits to the White House.
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The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement is a Washington-based think tank. Last Monday, the White House verified a CBS story that Mr. Biden’s lawyers discovered documents marked as sensitive there on November 2. The Biden administration said that a day later, the president’s attorneys gave the materials to the National Archives.
Additional sensitive materials were discovered in the president’s Wilmington garage by Mr. Biden’s aides in December. In January, a different document was discovered at the home, and on Saturday, the White House announced the discovery of five more classified pages.
Having worries that Mr. Biden “had compromised sources and techniques with his own mishandling of secret documents,” Mr. Comer said his committee has initiated a probe.
The disclosure of the records has prompted similarities to the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago under the auspices of a criminal probe into the handling of secret materials discovered there. After a month-long campaign to convince Mr. Trump’s team to turn up documents, agents took more than 11,000 documents from the home in August, including around 100 that were classified. Jack Smith, a Special Counsel, was chosen by the Justice Department to lead that probe.
Robert Hur was chosen on Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to serve as a separate special counsel to look into the discovery of the secret documents at Vice President Biden’s residence and think tank office.
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee and Democrat from Maryland, Rep. Jamie Raskin, expressed his support for Mr. Hur’s appointment on Sunday. On CNN, Mr. Raskin stated, “Equal treatment is all we’re asking for.
Democrats point out that the search of Mar-a-Lago followed lengthy talks for the return of the records between the National Archives and Mr. Trump’s team, during which the National Archives engaged the assistance of the Justice Department. When the initial documents were found, Mr. Biden’s attorneys contacted the National Archives, and they have since stated that they are completely cooperating with the appropriate authorities.
The Biden administration has been charged by Republicans with treating the two cases of classified documents differently. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), declared on Fox News on Sunday that “there is always this double standard.”
In a statement on Friday, Mr. Jordan said his committee would look into the Justice Department’s handling of Mr. Biden’s possession of classified information. He also questioned why the documents’ discovery in November, just before the midterm elections, wasn’t made public until January. The Justice Department has declined to comment on the congressional investigations, despite the White House’s repeated assurances that it is transparent in its disclosures.
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