According to Punchbowl News, leaders in Congress including both the top Democrat and Republican on both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and the Democratic and Republican leaders from each chamber have begun accessing the classified materials recovered most prominently from Donald Trump but also from Biden and Pence.
Seeing what authorities were able to reclaim could, of course, help those in Congress tasked with oversight to actually exercise that power more effectively, whether through understanding exactly what government secrets could have been made vulnerable or what options might be available for addressing the problem. “The Biden administration has started giving the congressional “Gang of Eight” access to the classified documents” found with Trump, Pence, and Biden, Punchbowl News said. The outlet cites advocacy for Congressional leaders to receive the materials from Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who are chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence panel, respectively.
There is already a special counsel looking into the Trump situation and another examining the circumstances of the classified documents found at locations associated with the current president, whose situation is distinct in that he is evidently not at all suspected of obstruction. Trump has tried to cite additional boxes allegedly under Biden’s control that he’s resisted providing to investigators, but the supporting evidence isn’t there. “Contrary to Trump’s claim, in February the FBI searched the university documents,” The Washington Post noted, referring to that disputed cache of files. Despite further insinuations suggesting such was at least possible from Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), there is no apparent evidence that Biden or those close to him with access to the materials made them improperly available to any third party.
“The committee was negotiating privately for months with the Justice Department over what lawmakers saw as the administration’s untenable position with regard to the documents,” Punchbowl News added of the intelligence panel in the Senate. Trump has yet to face any specific consequence from the investigation into his harboring of classified documents, although reports have pointed to accumulating evidence suggesting Trump intentionally misled his lawyers as the dispute has unfolded. His legal team had (incorrectly) represented to federal officials that everything covered by a subpoena for classified documents Trump was harboring was actually getting returned. Trump has been predictably antagonistic towards Jack Smith, the special counsel examining his case, and Trump has even questioned whether that’s his real name. While his given name is, in fact, John, that line of rhetoric is nonetheless rather bizarre.
