Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is requesting information from the Secret Service about visitors to Mar-a-Lago and an Indiana residence of former Vice President Mike Pence. That would allow a look at potential access to sensitive materials originating with the government.
At both locations, classified documents were discovered since the Trump team left power, although the Trump case involving Mar-a-Lago is obviously the more high-profile example. In that situation, as Raskin referenced in his letter dated from this week to the Director of the Secret Service, Trump (and his team) seemingly resisted the entreaties of federal authorities to provide all classified documents in the ex-president’s possession, leading up to FBI agents raiding Mar-a-Lago and recovering a large number more. That followed a signed statement from a Trump lawyer claiming all that was covered by a subpoena demanding Trump’s classified documents was getting returned. Although it’s unclear whether formal logs were kept, and recent circumstances suggest such documents may, in fact, not exist, Raskin asked for any “documents and communications related to visitor information” at both locations.
Raskin also specified a period of time under scrutiny, from the day after Trump’s presidency ended to the present. At the close of Raskin’s letter, there is a note seemingly indicating it was copied to House Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), suggesting — although such would already seem likely — that Democrats on the oversight panel were operating somewhat on their own here. Comer did so in the last Congress, seeking documents on the Bidens from the Treasury Department even though he was in the minority. His quest for what are known as suspicious activity reports covering financial moves connected to the Biden family remains seemingly unfulfilled. The reports do not themselves confirm corruption. Instead, that class of materials in general includes preliminary information, even including when cash transactions pass $10,000 in a day.
Elsewhere, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) — who is also on the oversight panel — recently touted plans for the committee to soon hear from multiple former employees at Twitter on topics including the site’s handling of past reporting on purported contents from a laptop of Hunter Biden, a son of the current president. Although prominent Republicans have claimed censorship, with Trump talking up the idea there was some kind of effect on the election, the info remained widely available even if links were restricted.
Also in the House, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is leading the House Judiciary Committee, is still running into hurdles, this time in his push for private information related to the federal handling of classified materials recovered from a series of locations associated with Biden. In a recent letter, Carlos Uriarte, who leads the Office of Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Justice Department, pushed back on the idea of giving Jordan what would apparently include communications between Justice Department and FBI officials about the docs.
Read the full letter here: https://t.co/Ec1ZQ0KNT6
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) January 31, 2023
