White House

Crime tape around DC

January 26, 2023 by BlazeTV Staff Leave a Comment

In this episode of LevinTV, Mark Levin talks about how classified documents seem to be everywhere. It’s a big deal, but why is the Praetorian guard leftist media treating Trump differently from everyone else? Obama said he didn’t take any documents with him. But Mark wants everyone to know that Biden’s documents are Obama’s documents. A huge piece of crime tape should be wrapped around D.C.

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White House Again Stonewalls Press on Classified Doc Scandal After Claiming Transparency

January 24, 2023 by Wendell Husebo Leave a Comment

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continued Tuesday to stonewall reporters on questions related to President Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal despite her repeated claims of providing transparency.

Legal experts suggest Jean-Pierre’s refusal to answer questions lacks any legal or logical reason.

Jean-Pierre refused to answer questions about why Biden possessed classified information. “We know the President did it. Why did he do it?” Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked.

“I’d refer you to the White House Counsel’s office,” Jean-Pierre responded.

“In the President’s own words, he admits to having information that wasn’t his. Why did he smuggle it out?” Doocy pressed.

“I’m not going to go down a rabbit hole on this,” Jean-Pierre replied.

The White House House press secretary also refused to answer why Biden visited his Wilmington home after the special counsel was named.

“After a special counsel was named, but before the FBI searched, President Biden went to his house in Wilmington. What was he doing in there?” Doocy asked.

Karine Jean-Pierre replied, “I would refer you to the White House Counsel’s Office.”

Additional stonewalling was used when a reporter asked if the president objected to a search of the University of Delaware for classified documents. The DOJ is reportedly weighing whether to search additional locations linked to Biden.

“Does President Biden have any objection to such a search?” the reporter asked.

Karine Jean-Pierre failed to directly answer the question.

According to constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, the White House’s refusal to answer questions about the scandal “lacks any cognizable legal or logical rationale.” He asked:

Why does the media have to ask legal counsel whether the Administration thinks former officials should take care to check for any classified documents improperly held in their home? Is there any alternative universe where counsel will equivocate on that question? Moreover, White House counsel (which was accused of drafting the original misleading statement to the press) does not represent the President as a person as opposed to the presidency.

“The White House is maintaining the position that the President can make public statements as the President but it will not address what he meant in those comments,” Turley continued. “Jean-Pierre refused to even answer if the President has been briefed on the Pence discoveries. Why? How is that a legal question?”

Troves of classified information were found by Biden’s personal attorneys and the DOJ in Biden’s Wilmington residence and the Penn Biden Center in recent weeks. The first and second troves were discovered before the scandal was leaked to the press on January 9.

White House officials have reportedly become suspicious about how Biden’s classified document scandal was leaked to the press after only a select group of White House and DOJ officials knew about the violation. The American people would not know of the scandal if it was not leaked, Republican lawmakers believe.

It remains unclear why Biden’s personal attorneys were initially searching for the classified materials. The White House and DOJ have failed to provide the initial reason or cause for the search.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

White House reporters slam Jean-Pierre for stonewalling over Biden classified docs: ‘Painful waste of time’

January 20, 2023 by Chris Enloe Leave a Comment

Reporters are growing increasingly frustrated with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for not providing answers to critical questions about President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents.

What are they saying?

More than a half-dozen White House reporters spoke with CNN reporter Oliver Darcy about their frustrations with Jean-Pierre’s stonewalling.

Speaking behind anonymity, the reporters did not hold back.

“She is arguably the least effective White House press secretary of the television era,” one reporter said.
“It’s just a painful waste of time,” another reporter said. “You just get the feeling that you’re wasting your time and whatever is in front of her in the binder is all she is going to say, no matter how many times you ask the question.”
“There is the expectation that when you say something, it’s going to be true. That’s been the biggest credibility hit for her, it’s answering a question in a way that ends up not being true,” another reporter said.

Meanwhile, another reporter told Darcy that most of the press corps likes Jean-Pierre personally, but “that shouldn’t be an excuse for her competence professionally.”

What is the background?

For more than a week, reporters have grilled Jean-Pierre for specifics about the multiple discoveries of classified documents, purportedly from the Obama administration, that were discovered at Biden’s post-vice presidential office and his Wilmington, Delaware, residence.

The chief question has been why the White House declined to disclose the discoveries in a more transparent way.

Specifically, the White House revealed last Monday the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s office on Nov. 2. But a batch was also discovered at Biden’s residence on Dec. 20.

However, when the White House admitted to the first batch, officials did not admit to the second; it was only after NBC News reported on the existence of the second batch that the White House confirmed that discovery.

Indeed, Jean-Pierre’s press briefings have become, in the words of Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, an “information blackout.”

That’s because when reporters pose a question that Jean-Pierre won’t answer, she refers reporters to the Justice Department or White House counsel’s office. But when the reporters reach out to those entities, each of them refers the reporters to each other or to special counsel Robert Hur. In the end, no new information is released.

Tension in the White House briefing room has led some Democratic strategists to suggest the White House appoint one person, not Jean-Pierre, to handle all communications about the classified documents scandal.

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Report: DOJ won’t bother having the FBI monitor Biden lawyers’ ‘search’ for mishandled top-secret documents

January 18, 2023 by Joseph MacKinnon Leave a Comment

The Department of Justice has determined that President Joe Biden’s lawyers can be trusted to search his homes for improperly stored classified documents without FBI supervision, insiders told the Wall Street Journal.

This soft and complaisant approach stands in stark contrast to the DOJ’s treatment of former President Donald Trump, despite the similarity of the presidents’ alleged improprieties.

The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence with guns drawn. When tearing through the property of the former president, the FBI reportedly showed no deference, taking whatever they wanted, including Trump’s passport. FBI agents then parsed through the documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence for days after the their tactical raid on the premises.

In the case of Biden’s potential mishandling of top-secret and classified documents, no guns have been unholstered. No raids have taken place.

According to the Wall Street Journal, sources familiar with the matter indicated that the DOJ has placed its confidence in the supposed honesty of Biden’s lawyers because they had allegedly been cooperating and had turned over the first batch of unsecure top-secret documents in short order.

Biden’s legal team reportedly discussed the possibility of having FBI agents present while they conducted subsequent searches, but “the two sides agreed” that the lawyers could dig around the president’s Delaware properties in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, then notify the DOJ if anything turned up.

The New York Post reported that the agreement between Biden’s legal team and the DOJ was sealed after the discovery of “intelligence memos and briefing materials” related to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom in Biden’s private office last fall.

CBS News’ Weijia Jiang asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “You’ve repeatedly emphasized the need — just as you did today — for independence, for the integrity of the Department of Justice investigation, [which is] one reason why you continue to point us to the DOJ. So I wonder, why then did the White House counsel go to Wilmington to facilitate the handing-over of documents to the DOJ?”

Jean-Pierre noted she appreciated the question, but didn’t provide an answer.

Jiang did not relent, however; noting how the White house has repeatedly suggested “how much it is important to this White House to separate the White House from the DOJ’s investigation. … But the White House counsel was the one to go and facilitate documents, to look for the documents.”

The White House press secretary added, “Again, they’ve been working very closely with the Department of Justice.”

Biden has reportedly dodged “more aggressive actions by law enforcement” thanks to this “cooperation” between his lawyers and the DOJ.

Law enforcement officials told the Wall Street Journal that what may appear to be the DOJ’s deference to the Biden White House may actually be a tactic enabling it to later “take a tougher line, including executing a future search warrant, if negotiations ever turned hostile.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said, “The outrageous double standard of the corrupt DOJ and FBI, which have been weaponized against Joe Biden’s political opponents, could not be more clear.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) similarly suggested that this amounts to a double standard:

u201cWhy was President Trumpu2019s home raided but not President Bidenu2019s? nnWhy did the FBI take pictures of President Trumpu2019s so-called classified documents but not President Bidenu2019s?nnAmericans are tired of the double standard.u201d
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Rep. Jim Jordan)
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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week, stating, “The double standard here is astounding. The underlying behavior at issue—a President’s retention of old classified documents dating back to a past presidency—is materially the same in both cases.”

“But in President Trump’s case, that retention triggered an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, rationalized with a thicket of partisan doublespeak. President Biden has not experienced anything remotely similar,” he added. “Your Department’s apparent disparate treatment of these two cases thus far isn’t especially surprising, because today’s FBI leadership is growing more partisan by the day.”

While Biden appears to have the DOJ’s cooperation, there are yet some with Democrat affinities who regard the president with disdain, such as Walter Shaub, ethics chief in the Obama administration.

TheBlaze reported that Shaub recently suggested that Biden’s “retention of classified records reflects an inexcusable neglect of the most basic security protocols.”

A handful of other Democrats including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), have suggested that the president’s handling of classified documents was shameful, with some calling it “an embarrassment.”

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