What do we know — so far, at least — about the Biden classified documents situation?
The information provided to the public has come from people who work for, or are otherwise close to, President Joe Biden and has been filtered selectively through a media largely predisposed to protect the president.
According to
Bob Bauer
, who is Biden’s personal attorney and a former White House counsel and longtime Democratic power broker whose wife (Anita Dunn) is a senior adviser to the president, the classified documents were “unexpectedly discovered” on Nov. 2 (six days before the midterm elections) by one or more members of the president’s team of personal lawyers.
The documents were supposedly found in a closet in Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank located in Washington, D.C., and affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania.
Bauer claims that Biden’s lawyers immediately notified the National Archives and Records Administration of the discovery.
Each of the attorneys or non-lawyers who discovered those documents is now a fact witness in the investigation, which itself could become awkward if not legally troubling for Biden, depending on what the special counsel recommends.
It’s been reported that the University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million in donations from anonymous Chinese
donors
shortly after the Penn Biden Center was established in 2017.
On Nov. 4, the National Archives Office of Inspector General notified the Department of Justice of the discovery. The FBI commenced an investigation five days later, and the day after that, the Justice Department notified Biden’s lawyers that it is looking into the matter.
On Nov. 14, John Lausch, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and an appointee of former President Donald Trump, was tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with conducting a preliminary investigation.
On Dec. 20, Biden’s lawyers informed Lausch that they had found a “small number” of additional classified documents in a storage space in the garage of Biden’s private home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he keeps his 1967 Corvette Stingray. According to Bauer, the Justice Department took possession of those documents the next day.
On Jan. 5, Lausch briefed Garland about his preliminary conclusions and recommended the appointment of a special counsel.
On Jan. 9, after the story broke about the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, the White House acknowledged the matter, and Biden
stated
that he was “surprised” to learn about the discovery and claimed not to know what was in the documents.
Neither Biden nor the White House mentioned the classified records that were found in his home until Jan. 12 after media outlets began reporting on that discovery.
At that time, the White House acknowledged the discovery and added an additional page with classified information that it said was “discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room” to the garage at the home. The same day, in response to a reporter’s question, Biden
said
, “by the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage. It’s not like it’s sitting out in the street.”
Also that same day, Garland appointed Robert Hur, whose legal career is detailed below, as a special counsel to lead the investigation into the matter.
On Jan. 14, the White House issued a statement that yet another five pages of classified information had been discovered in a storage room adjacent to Biden’s garage within hours after the statement it had issued on Jan 12. Biden has
described
the adjacent room as his “personal library.”
Robert Sauber, another attorney working for Biden who claims to have the requisite security clearances, has
stated
that he made this subsequent discovery and that the attorneys who made the initial discovery in the storage closet stopped their search immediately after they found the documents because they did not have the requisite security clearances to review classified material.
Sauber also
claims
that all of the recently discovered documents “were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives.”
Biden’s attorneys further claim that they also searched Biden’s second home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but did not find any classified documents at that location.
It has been
reported
that some of the documents are labeled “Top Secret” and include briefing documents and intelligence reports involving Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom.
Assuming that all of that is true, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Not only should the special counsel delve into these questions, but Congress should as well.
Those questions fall into three broad categories: timing, access, and damage assessment.
Timing
- When the first set of classified documents were found before the election, why wasn’t the press notified immediately?
- Who decided not to inform the press that classified documents were found before the election, and why?
- What role did the midterm elections held on Nov. 8 play in the decision not to inform the press of the existence of the classified documents that were found on Nov. 2?
- Did any attorneys working for Biden, in an official or unofficial capacity, notify the press, on deep background, off the record, or otherwise, about the discovery of the classified documents before the election, and, if so, who told whom what and when?
- When was the president notified that the first set of classified documents was found, and who notified him?
- Who did the attorneys who first discovered the documents notify? By what means did they notify the person(s)?
- How many White House personnel knew about the discovery of the classified documents before the elections, and who are they?
- Why did it take the National Archives two days to notify the FBI? Who at the National Archives was first notified on Nov. 2 of the discovery of the documents, and who else did that person notify at the National Archives? What happened between Nov. 2 and Nov. 4 at the National Archives related to this topic?
- When did Garland find out about the existence of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center?
- Why did it take the Department of Justice five days to commence an investigation after it learned on Nov. 4 from the inspector general at the National Archives that classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center?
- Who at the Department of Justice was involved in the discussions about the classified documents between Nov. 4 and Nov. 9?
- Who at Justice decided to commence an investigation on Nov. 9?
- Why did the attorney general delay appointing Lausch until Nov. 14?
- What happened at Justice between Nov. 9 and Nov. 14 related to this case?
Access
- Who packed up Vice President Joe Biden’s office when he was the vice president?
- Name every single person who had access to, or could have had access to, those documents while Biden was the vice president.
- How did these documents end up in the locations where they were found and what led to this discovery? Since Biden left office as vice president in January 2017 but the Biden Center did not open until February 2018 (although other reports say Biden started using an office there in 2017), it seems that the documents located there had been moved. Who moved them and how did that happen?
- Who had access to the Penn Biden Center from the time it was established until the day the documents were found?
- Who had a key to the room and/or closet where the documents were found in the Penn Biden Center?
- Name every foreign national who entered the Penn Biden Center, when they were there, the amount of time they were there, and the purpose for their visit. Which foreign nationals entered the room where the documents were found, when, and for what purpose?
- Who had access to the Biden residence from the time Biden left office as vice president until the day the documents were found in his garage or storage room in the house?
- Even though the president does not have visitor logs for his personal residences in Delaware, the U.S. Secret Service must “clear” anyone who visits the home while Biden was/is president. Is the president willing to order the Secret Service to disclose the list of all persons cleared for entrance into his homes, and the dates of those entrances?
- Who had a key to Biden’s house, or was granted access to the house, even once? When did they enter, for how long, and for what purpose?
- Assuming there are security cameras at Biden’s residence, have the tapes been secured? How long do the tapes go back in time? Are there any gaps or unexplained malfunctions of the videotapes during all the time recordings were taking place?
- How did the documents get to the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s home? When did they get there? Who brought them there? How many times have they been moved? By whom?
- Were any of the classified documents copied, and if so, when and by whom? Why were they copied, and where are the copies?
Damage Assessment
- How sensitive is the information in each of the documents? In addition to “Top Secret” information, do any of the documents contain sensitive compartmented information (SCI); that is, code-word-protected information with strict controls on need-to-know access, which often includes the most sensitive information about classified programs and the sources and methods of intelligence gathering?
- Has the Justice Department started a damage assessment? When was it started? Who is conducting it, and when will it be completed? Will the outcome of the damage assessment be released to the public in an unclassified format?
Other Issues
- While working at the Penn Biden Center, Biden was conducting research for a book that covered Ukraine, among other topics. Is there any evidence that he examined any of these classified documents during the course of his research?
- What were the classified documents near and were they stored in envelopes that clearly identified the contents as classified?
- Why were/are lawyers conducting these searches, rather than FBI agents or national security officials?
- Did the lawyers have the requisite security clearances?
- Why were Biden’s lawyers searching for this material six years after Biden’s tenure as vice president ended and two years into his presidency?
- Why did the FBI or national security officials not conduct their own search after the documents were initially discovered?
- How many other cases where there is a verified breach of national security protocols where a former government employee is found in possession of classified document has the FBI allowed the violator or his designees to conduct their own investigation?
- Are there more classified documents out there, and if so, where and how many?
- Is there any basis to suggest that the information was, in fact, divulged to others—either intentionally or inadvertently—who did not have the requisite clearances or the “need to know” the contents of those documents?
The biggest question in terms of a potential criminal prosecution, of course, is whether Biden knew the documents were there, the same question that was asked about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the information residing on the server that was installed at the home she shared with former President Bill Clinton in Chappaqua, N.Y.
So far, Biden is denying this.
Congress can, and should, conduct vigorous oversight hearings. While they may be stymied, Congress should do its level best to unearth exactly what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and if there should be any consequences. Congress should, at the very least, review how classified documents were handled at the end of the Obama-Biden administration in order to minimize the risks to our national security in the future.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA
This article originally appeared in the Daily Signal and is reprinted with kind permission from the Heritage Foundation.
