On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, the White House pledged that his administration would “bring transparency and truth back to government,” promising to realize a campaign pledge that aides said would yield a “transparent, open” relationship with the press.
Yet the reality has proven more complicated as the public clamored for answers from Biden after military jets downed a Chinese surveillance balloon and three mysterious flying “objects” in recent weeks. After facing pressure to speak out, Biden vowed to take down future aerial phenomena that pose a risk to the public but provided no answers on the origins of the other objects shot down.
OBAMA’S FORMER DOCTOR SAYS TO EXPECT WHITE HOUSE TO ‘SUGARCOAT’ BIDEN PHYSICAL
The White House has batted back questions over classified document spillage, the use of certain designations to allow staff performing important White House functions to bypass public disclosure of their financial interests, and a long-awaited physical evaluation from Biden’s doctor after it slipped from 2022 into the new year. The White House had attributed the delay to Biden’s travel schedule.
Reporters have also queried the administration’s refusal to provide public visitor logs for Biden’s Delaware residences, where the president logged one in four days during his first-year office, and at his Washington think tank, where classified files were held.
Emails between Biden’s attorneys and the National Archives released last week revealed efforts to coordinate the transfer of a previously unconfirmed cache of documents from his time as vice president, held at a Boston law office last November.
The White House has been pressed repeatedly on the timing of the classified document disclosures after it emerged that the president may have mishandled secret files dating from his time in the Obama administration.
Aides have defended the failure to disclose an FBI search of Biden’s previously little-known think tank weeks after the president’s attorneys found classified documents at the site, saying he was focused on “things that matter.”
The push for transparency over Biden’s handling of documents, meetings, and health comes as the president nears an expected reelection announcement.
Ex-President Barack Obama’s longtime former doctor warned that the White House would “sugarcoat” Biden’s evaluation, which billed the president as a “healthy, vigorous” octogenarian who “remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
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At 80, Biden is the oldest person to ever serve as president and would be 86 at the end of a second term if reelected.
