House investigators cast doubt on Biden’s classified document timeline

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House investigators say President Biden began dispatching staff to retrieve boxes of documents months before his administration disclosed to the National Archives the discovery of improperly held classified documents, starting the same day that the Justice Department subpoenaed former President Donald Trump over his stash of classified materials.

The timeline and actions, lawmakers say, suggest that Mr. Biden’s team may have been aware he was in possession of classified documents long before Nov. 2, 2022, when Mr. Biden’s lawyer said they discovered the material and summoned the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to pick them up.

Mr. Biden did not disclose to the public that he was in possession of classified material until January 2023, when he said he was surprised about the discovery of the documents. More classified material was discovered later on at his Wilmington, Delaware home, some of it dating back to his time as a senator.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer is seeking transcribed interviews with five top Biden aides who worked to retrieve boxes of documents from Mr. Biden’s now-defunct think tank, the Penn Biden Center in Washington, beginning in the spring of 2022. 

Among the staff House investigators want to interview is Dana Remus, former White House Counsel and assistant to the president, who reached out to one of Mr. Biden’s former assistants about picking up material from the Penn Biden Center.

Ms. Remus contacted former Biden assistant Kathy Chung on May 11, 2022, the same day the Justice Department subpoenaed Mr. Trump for classified documents he was holding at his Palm Beach estate.  Ms. Remus reached out to Ms. Chung through Ms. Chung’s personal email account and personal phone, skirting public records scrutiny, seeking to obtain material from the Penn Biden Center. Ms. Chung helped to coordinate the retrieval.

Twice in June 2022 and three times in October 2022, former and current Biden aides went to the Penn Biden Center to either sort through the boxes or retrieve some of the material.

None of those events were disclosed by Mr. Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, whose timeline of events began Nov. 2, 2022, with what he called an unexpected discovery of classified material.

Mr. Comer said the timeline provided by the president’s attorney was incomplete and misleading.

“It omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, Ms. Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials,” Mr. Comer said in a letter to White House Counsel Edward Siskel.

Mr. Comer’s demand for interviews and relevant documents from the Biden administration follows the disclosure that Mr. Biden was interviewed last week by Robert K. Hur, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the matter.

The investigation into Mr. Biden’s possession of classified documents is taking place as Mr. Trump faces dozens of criminal charges related to allegations of unsafe handling of classified materials that he removed from the White House in January 2021 and stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Mr. Comer challenged the Biden administration’s statements that his own stash of classified documents was kept safe in a locked closet. Mr. Comer noted that the closet at the Penn Biden Center was unlocked with each of the visits from Mr. Biden’s staff, “and allowed multiple people, whose levels of security clearance remain unknown, to access the boxes containing classified materials.”

The Biden team also shipped some material from the Penn Biden Center before the Archives staff could retrieve the classified documents, Mr. Comer said.

The Kentucky Republican said he wants to know why senior Biden officials, including Ms. Remus, then the White House’s top lawyer, were used to sort through the documents in the first place.

“As we now know, the boxes at Penn Biden Center held sensitive, classified materials,” Mr. Comer said. “It is obvious to the committee
that the White House and President Biden’s personal attorneys were concerned about the contents of the boxes held at Penn Biden Center months before contacting NARA.”