EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans are calling for a classified documents search at a university storing President Joe Biden’s records from his Senate tenure as the investigation into the president’s potential mishandling of materials heats up.
Several watchdog groups said on Tuesday that DOJ special counsel Robert Hur should authorize a search at the University of Delaware for classified documents, which have been found at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and at the Penn Biden Center think tank. Four Republican members of Congress told the Washington Examiner that an immediate search is warranted at the university, which houses almost 2,000 boxes and over 400 gigabytes of Biden’s Senate records.
BIDEN SENATE RECORDS SHOULD BE SEARCHED IN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, WATCHDOGS SAY
“As a matter of national security, the special counsel must search Joe Biden’s full Senate records, which have remained hidden under lock and key from the American public,” said House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY). “The American people deserve to know the extent of Biden’s national security risk, especially after discovering Joe Biden has had possession of classified documents from his time in the Senate over a decade ago.”
The Senate records at the University of Delaware are said to contain draft legislation, correspondence, and committee reports. In 2012, Biden donated the records to the school, which initially claimed they would be made “available to the public two years after Biden’s last day in elected public office.”
However, hours before Biden announced his presidential bid, in April 2019, the university said the documents would stay under wraps until he “retires from public life.”
“We need to go back to his history,” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner. “I am completely stunned by the lack of discipline. If you are on the House side, as I’ve stated publicly, you cannot walk out of a room or a private briefing with anything. They have these things floating around.”
On Friday, DOJ officials located six more classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington home during a 13-hour search that the president and first lady Jill Biden were not present for. Documents have been found between November 2022 and January, including in the president’s Wilmington garage, where his son, Hunter Biden, previously lived at.
The president’s son, who has been pictured behind the wheel of the elder Biden’s Corvette parked in the garage of the Wilmington home, may soon face charges in connection to potentially fraudulent business expense deductions worth at least $30,000, and allegedly late tax filings in 2016 and 2017.
The time frame is notable, given that Hunter Biden was also paid $6 million in 2017 and 2018 by CEFC, a now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate affiliated with the Chinese government. CEFC’s former chairman, Ye Jianming, has since disappeared in China following court documents linking him to a bribery case.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a member of the House Rules Committee, told the Washington Examiner that a search of the university is “absolutely” warranted, noting that Biden is “deliberately” bypassing the public trust and the Constitution.
“There is no way this man should get by laughing his way through like he’s done and tried to just pass this off as a mistake,” he said in an interview on Tuesday, adding that Biden’s “ties to China” are cause for concern and means certain records should potentially be declassified.
The Penn Biden Center think tank, which Biden sometimes used as a personal office between 2017 and 2020, has raked in millions of dollars from Chinese donors. This fact has propelled the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog, to demand an investigation into whether the think tank associated with the University of Pennsylvania violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The think tank has also held events that have called for closer collaboration between the U.S. and China’s government in terms of education and green energy policy, according to multiple reports.
“We’ve got to look at it all,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Let’s let the evidence lead us to where we need to go. I think we’ve got to be open to it all.”
“You can’t trust the DOJ and you can’t trust the FBI,” added Nehls. “And I think we’ve got the two right guys in place. Comer and Jordan as chairs of those two committees that will have oversight and will look into this. This needs to be exposed. The American people need to know that the Biden family is as corrupt as corrupt could be, in my humble opinion.”
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have continued to vow a sweeping investigation into the Biden family, including Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Comer claimed on Sunday that the classified documents scandal fits the “pattern of an influence operation,” questioning whether the situation resembles “treason.”
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In response to Comer requesting information about materials found at the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s Wilmington home, the White House pledged on Monday to “accommodate legitimate oversight interests.” White House counsel Stuart Delery told Comer that the administration “takes seriously the security and protection of government records” and looks “forward to engaging in good faith with you and your staff regarding your requests.”
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson demanded on Monday that the Secret Service turn over a list of “all individuals” who have frequented locations where classified documents have been found. The letter, first obtained by the Washington Examiner, came after the White House said visitor logs for Biden’s Wilmington home do not exist.
The Secret Service, however, collects information on guests with regular access to the home. The agency is reportedly willing to provide Congress with a list of visitors.
The White House did not reply to a request for comment.
