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Smells Like a Cover-Up: NARA Was Stopped From Telling Public About Biden Classified Docs Find

February 1, 2023 by Nick Arama Leave a Comment

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I previously reported how the Justice Department and the Biden White House had a “shared understanding” that the finding of the Biden classified documents was going to be kept under wraps.

Translation: That sounds a lot like a cover-up to me. It should have been incumbent on the White House to be straightforward with it before the election. But instead, they hid the news and didn’t come out with any information until they were busted on the issue by CBS.

But what about the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which was informed about the first find at the Penn Biden Center by November 3?

They were vocal about President Donald Trump and wrote numerous press releases about the matter. Why weren’t they talking about Joe Biden’s classified documents and why weren’t they complying with the House Oversight Committee’s requests for documents?

Let’s talk more cover-up because what the Republicans just found out is pretty bad.

According to the Chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer (R-KY), NARA was stopped from issuing a prepared press release about the discovery of the classified documents. NARA general counsel Gary Stern told the Committee during a long transcribed interview that he wasn’t able to tell them who ordered them not to release a statement.

“So we asked the general counsel, why were there no press releases sent on Joe Biden once it was determined that he had classified documents in his possession?
“And the counsel said that he did do press releases, but he was ordered and told they couldn’t be published.
“So — we did ask who gave him the orders and he said, I can’t tell you that. But there are only two people that could have given him those orders, and that’s either the Department of Justice with Merrick Garland or the White House with Joe Biden.
“So it shows right there that this Department of Justice and this White House is interfering with this and treating Donald Trump very differently than they’re treating Joe Biden.”

Comer said there were “pages and pages of press releases and information about the FBI raid into Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents,” Mr. Comer said. “But there’s nothing on the website about Joe Biden.”

So that means the Biden team — either the DOJ or the White House — gave the order and prevented the American people from knowing about it before the election. Why is Stern unable to tell them now? That’s nonsense. They’re Oversight — he’s not compromising any investigation by telling them that. He needs to provide that answer. This not only screams cover-up but the double standard between this and how they dealt with the Trump case is glaring. Isn’t the Trump case still going on? Why is it alright to have all those press releases out there about his case, but none about Biden?

Comer also said that NARA wasn’t preventing the White House from talking or being transparent about the documents. “So, it’s not the National Archives, it’s the Department of Justice. It is Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice,” Comer said. Let me disagree with Comer just a little — or it’s Biden and/or his team telling the DOJ what to do.

We’ve already seen it isn’t just the DOJ but the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines saying they can’t provide the classified documents to Congress to assess the damage to national security. The DOJ doesn’t control the DNI, so this is not just the DOJ. The DNI said they couldn’t tell the Senate Intelligence Committee about the documents until the special counsel investigations were concluded. Senators on the Committee on both sides of the aisle said that was unsatisfactory because it doesn’t allow them to do their job. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the Chair and Vice Chair of the Committee said they could threaten the intel community’s money if they continued to hold back the documents. The DOJ has also stiff-armed other House efforts to get information on the documents, claiming it could hamper the investigations.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) tried to spin the response, saying they had to be conscious of the integrity of the investigations. “Any implication that the National Archives is not cooperating with the Committee’s investigation seems utterly false and unfair,” he argued.

But that didn’t stop them from putting out releases about Trump. So sorry, that doesn’t fly as an excuse.

NARA’s Response to Oversight Committee on Biden Docs Shows Just How Glaring the Bias Is

January 25, 2023 by Nick Arama Leave a Comment

We saw that the National Archives had no problem talking and offering up information when it came to President Donald Trump and classified documents. But now when it comes to Joe Biden, suddenly we’re seeing NARA — which is supposed to be an objective government agency — playing the silence game.

We saw that before the story was revealed by CBS a couple of weeks ago, the White House and the Justice Department had — in the words of the Washington Post — a “shared understanding” to keep quiet about what was going on. Thus, the American public was kept in the dark, by the White House and the DOJ, right before a critical election.

But it should be noted NARA wasn’t talking either. Talk about two systems of justice. You weren’t getting raids on Biden’s home, even with two finds of documents before this issue became public. Plus, Biden was given free rein to go to his homes over this period, so who knows what might have been cleared away? NARA also has failed to make a public statement about the Biden documents in the two weeks since the finds of the documents were announced. There are about 30 documents ranging in time from about at least six years ago when Biden left the vice presidency to things from his Senate days which would be at least 14 years old. NARA hasn’t responded to a Fox request for comment, while they had no problem issuing all kinds of releases when it came to Trump.

On Jan. 10, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) asked for a NARA briefing on the documents that had been found so far, so they could assess the possible damage and national security concerns. NARA refused to comply with that. Oversight also demanded that NARA provide records detailing their interactions with Biden’s lawyers and the Justice Department by Jan. 24. But now NARA has failed to comply with that deadline. That request only pertained to the documents found at the Penn Biden Center. Now there have been four other batches of documents found between Joe Biden’s home, garage, and the Center. Comer has since asked for more information about the other documents.

“The National Archives has not produced the requested documents to the Committee at this time,” a committee spokesperson said on Tuesday. “Chairman Comer’s request still stands and anticipates moving forward with a transcribed interview with NARA’s general counsel soon.”

Comer has said that he would not be shy about immediately issuing subpoenas if they didn’t comply so that might be the next thing we see on the horizon.

Comer also told the NARA archivist Debra Steidel Wall that they now would be investigating the agency for the differences in how they had dealt with the Trump matter versus how they had dealt with the Biden matter.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter to Steidel Wall earlier this month informing her that his committee has launched an investigation on “whether there is a political bias at the National Archives and Records Administration.”
“For months, NARA failed to disclose to Committee Republicans or the American public that President Biden—after serving as Vice President—stored highly classified documents in a closet at his personal office,” Comer told Steidel Wall in the Jan. 10 letter. “Meanwhile, NARA instigated a public and unprecedented FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago—former President Trump’s home—to retrieve presidential records. NARA’s inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley noted the difference and said that NARA “will need to be more transparent with Congress or risk contempt sanctions.”

This also raises the question if they aren’t forthcoming about the nature of the documents because they know it might impact the other investigations into the Bidens’ foreign business dealings. We know, for example, that they said among the documents were some on Ukraine. So is that something that could impact that question and did Biden take it to cover things up? That would be a big question that is hanging out there that needs to be answered.