Lauren C. Moye, FISM News
The Department of Justice (DOJ) “is actively working” to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with more information on classified documents located at the private residences of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a department official said on Saturday.
Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote to the committee’s chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and ranking member Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) late on Saturday night in response to the Intelligence Committee’s requests for more transparency on the documents.
“We are working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to support the provision of information that will satisfy the Committee’s responsibilities without harming the ongoing Special Counsel investigations,” Uriarte stated in the letter, which was first obtained by CBS News.
Classified documents were located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in an unprecedented FBI raid in early August.
Uriarte’s letter claims that the DOJ attempted to brief Intelligence Committee members on the security risks after this point. However, the briefing fell through due to undisclosed reasons.
The matter has since been complicated even more by additional document discoveries and the appointment of two special counsels.
Despite much public criticism lobbed at Trump by the Biden administration, Biden himself would soon be in a similar predicament when his lawyers uncovered marked documents in his personal office in the Washington, DC area. The Penn Biden Center document discovery led to an additional search at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.
Since then, classified documents from both Biden’s vice presidency and senate years have been located at the Delaware residence. The most recent discovery was on Friday. Before that, documents were discovered on Dec. 20, Jan. 11, and Jan. 12.
The classified documents have led to the appointment of two separate special counsels to investigate how the documents came to be located in personal residences and office spaces. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to oversee the document investigation of Trump on Nov. 20. He later named Robert Hur to lead the Biden inquiry on Jan. 12.
“Although one of the Special Counsels was appointed only on January 12, prosecutors on both matters are actively working to enable sharing information with the Committee,” Uriarte wrote to Warner and Rubio.
Uriarte said that disclosing non-public information before then could interfere with the DOJ’s ability to gather facts and interview witnesses.
GROWING FRUSTRATION LEADS SENATE MEMBERS TO THREATEN STONEWALLING
Meanwhile, the lack of transparency with the Intelligence Committee leaves the oversight group in a difficult position where they are unable to do their job.
“Our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those. Our job is to make sure there’s not an intelligence compromise,” Warner told “Face the Nation” in an interview that was taped on Thursday.
Rubio appeared alongside Warner for the interview. The Republican added that he didn’t know how congressional oversight with “actually knowing what they are, in any way impedes an investigation. These are probably materials we already have access to.”
The growing frustration has led to some threats of stonewalling from the committee members.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) threatened to block Biden administration appointees until the DOJ provides details of the classified documents to the committee.
“Until the administration stops stonewalling Congress, there will be pain as a consequence,” Cotton said. “There’s a simple solution to this. The administration should stop stonewalling Congress and provide these documents to us.”
Rubio has also hinted that the committee might refuse to cooperate on authorizing the movement of funds if the Director of National Intelligence does not facilitate a way for the members to provide oversight.
“I’d prefer not to go down that road. But it’s one of the pieces of leverage we have as Congress. I’m not, we’re not going to sit here and just issue press releases all day,” Rubio said on Face the Nation.
CRUZ CALLS FOR HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION
On Jan. 25, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called for Hunter Biden’s home and business to be searched for classified documents connected to his dad’s positions.
“The FBI needs to search and investigate to determine whether there are any classified documents at Hunter Biden’s home or business,” Cruz said on his “Verdict” podcast.
“The FBI doesn’t need to sit on its rear end for days and weeks and months and let someone put those documents in a shredder,” Cruz continued. They need to show up tomorrow and search Hunter Biden’s home and office. If we care about protecting classified documents and understanding what Joe Biden has done, we need to do that immediately.”
The call is part of a larger concern that the discovered classified documents will show a link to either Ukraine or China, both of which have been locations of shady business deals struck by Hunter in recent years.
It’s one of the main concerns of the House Oversight Committee, which believes there is evidence to show that both Hunter and the president’s brothers have engaged in “influence peddling” to foreign actors. The Oversight Committee have also been stalled as they attempt to gain access to the recovered documents, although they will hear testimony from the National Archives and Record Agency’s top lawyer tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Breitbart reported that the younger Biden converted the Delaware residence into a personal office space in 2018. Hunter went so far as to claim he owned the building during a background screening check signed in July 2018, according to the report.