White House officials are reportedly suspicious about how President Joe Biden’s classified document scandal was leaked to the press after only a select group of White House and Justice Department officials knew about the violation.
The plot to hide the scandal, initially designed by eight of Biden’s closest confidants with apparent approval from the Justice Department, was suddenly leaked to CBS News 68 days after Biden’s personal attorney unearthed the classified documents at the Penn Biden Center. It is unclear why or what Biden’s personal attorneys were originally seeking at the center funded in part by anonymous Chinese donations.
According to the New York Times, there is suspicion within the White House about how the scandal became public after it had been tightly under wraps for weeks between Biden’s eight aides and the Justice Department. Despite the administration’s claims of transparency after the fact, those eight aides and the DOJ agreed to hide the scandal from the American people until it leaked to the press on January 9, sixty-eight days after the documents were unearthed by an unknown cause on November 2, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
The president’s senior adviser Anita Dunn was initially “adamant” about hiding the legal disaster from the press because “the only thing that would create legal exposure would be drawing public attention to it,” the Times reported Friday. The plot to keep the scandal concealed from the public was further fueled because the aides worried “the very act of publicizing the discovery of the documents would create a political furor that would make the appointment of a special counsel unavoidable.”
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023, en route to California. (AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel)
“The quiet cooperation continued for weeks” between the aides and the DOJ, which not only tried to obscure the scandal from public view but refused to divulge that the second trove of classified documents was already unearthed at Biden’s home in Wilmington when CBS News first contacted the White House about the initial leak of classified documents apparently illegally stored at the Biden Penn Center, according to the Post.
Biden’s personal attorneys were not the individuals who sought to unearth more documents at Biden’s residence. The Times reported the widened search was demanded by the DOJ. After about 25 classified documents — some of which are top secret — were found between three locations, the DOJ appointed a special counsel, a move Biden’s aides reportedly were trying to prevent.
On Thursday, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), told Breitbart News exclusively he plans to probe the Biden administration’s reported plot to hide the classified document scandal from the American people.
“The Biden White House’s secrecy in this matter is alarming,” Comer said. “Many questions need to be answered but one thing is certain: oversight is coming.”
The White House, Justice Department, and National Archives have so far stonewalled Comer’s demands for information related to the scandal.
Critics have questioned why Biden’s personal attorneys were initially looking for classified documents. The White House has not yet explained why or what caused the attorneys to search for the classified materials, despite Biden’s claims his administration has provided complete transparency.
According to a Wednesday Quinnipiac poll, 60 percent of Americans believe Biden inappropriately mishandled classified materials related to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
