On day one of President Joe Biden’s presidency, the White House pledged to “bring transparency and truth back to government.”
Days into Biden’s latest scandal involving multiple discoveries of several classified documents from his years as vice president in his office, home, and garage, it’s more clear than ever that the Biden administration has no intentions of transparency when it comes to this issue.
So far, corporate media coverage of the sensitive materials has largely centered on any details that can be manipulated to distance Biden’s scandal from the classified documents dispute that prompted the Biden FBI to raid former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago (no such raid has been executed at any of the locations where Biden stashed documents). While media run cover for Biden — and their own double standard — there are still at least nine important and outstanding questions that the White House should but likely won’t answer about “garage gate.”
1. Why Were the Documents in Biden’s Possession?
The White House claims Biden didn’t know about the documents and was “surprised” they were found in his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office. But I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were,” Biden said at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico.
House Intelligence Committee members, however, reject that claim.
“For those who think that well, the president didn’t realize that he had those in his possession. It just is nonsense. Of course he knew that he had them. They’re so obvious,” Republican Rep. Chris Stewart said on “Face The Nation.”
2. Why Were Biden’s Lawyers Poking Around?
The official reasoning given to justify Biden’s lawyers’ snooping was that the legal team was “closing out” his Penn Biden Center office in Washington D.C. and stumbled across the documents. Reports suggest the first batch of classified materials was discovered in a manila folder labeled “personal.”
That discovery reportedly prompted the Democrat’s lawyers to extend their search and review, which is how they found other records in Biden’s Delaware garage near his Corvette and in his home.
It’s still unclear why Biden’s personal attorneys were tasked with clearing out his old office in the first place.
3. Why Did Biden’s Lawyers, the DOJ, and the National Archives Keep the Documents Quiet for Months?
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the National Archives and Department of Justice were notified “the minute that his lawyers found those documents,” but the same can’t be said for the public.
Biden’s lawyers found the documents in his Penn office mere days before the 2022 midterm elections. They uncovered more records in his home in December. News about the discoveries, however, didn’t come until early January.
Why did the Biden administration, DOJ, and National Archives choose to hide that information from Americans until now? Did some of Biden’s allies in the press know about the documents and choose to keep them quiet? Did delaying news about Biden’s potential crime affect the election like the subversion of material from his son’s laptop did?
4. Did the White House Ask the DOJ to Delay Involvement in Investigation?
A new Wall Street Journal report seems to suggest so. According to the article published on Jan. 17, Biden’s legal team struck a deal with the DOJ to keep the FBI, which eagerly facilitated a raid on Trump’s home, away from the search for more material.
“Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them,” the article reported.
5. Did Biden’s Lawyers Sift Through Docs Before Handing Them Over to Archives?
Because the DOJ granted Biden’s legal team the luxury of sifting through the confidential records without surveillance or oversight, there’s no way for the public to know if Biden’s legal team vetted, removed, or tampered with the materials before handing them over.
Early reports suggested the files recovered from the Biden Center include “US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.”
Considering Biden’s history of leading the White House’s relations with Ukraine as VP and his son’s history of profiting off of a Ukrainian energy company during that same time, documents with sensitive information about Ukraine could be useful for congressional Republicans investigating Biden family corruption.
6. Will the Special Counsel Execute the Probe Without Political Bias?
Attorney General Merrick Garland eventually hand-picked special counsel Robert Hur to oversee the probe into Biden’s sensitive records but there’s no guarantee the special counsel will divert from the DOJ’s politicized agenda.
As a matter of fact, Hur was involved in the FBI’s communications with Russia collusion hoaxer No. 1 Christopher Steele. Hur was also a member of the DOJ team that tried to subvert a congressional exposé of the intelligence community’s failures during that same collusion hoax.
7. Who Had Access to the Sensitive Materials?
Despite claims from Biden, the White House, and the corporate media that the classified materials were securely stored, it’s clear that foot-trafficked areas such as a “locked” garage next to a car, a house that is occupied frequently by the president, and a closet in a busy office building are no place for sensitive documents.
Who all had access to these locations?
Well, we know that Hunter Biden, the president’s scandal-plagued son, lived in his parents’ Delaware home where the sensitive documents were stored for years. He even lied at one point that he owned the property.
As for anyone else, the Secret Service denies keeping a record of any comings and goings around Biden’s house. The White House previously alluded to the existence of visitor logs but now claims they never existed.
8. What’s in the Classified Documents?
Perhaps the most pressing and important question about Biden’s classified documents is what do they contain? In the wise words of Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway: “we don’t know what we don’t know.”
Do the files actually hold sensitive Obama-era information about Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom, as reports suggest? If so, that makes the $51 million the University of Pennsylvania received from foreign, anonymous donors since Biden’s inauguration look extra suspicious. Especially since the bulk of those donations originated from China, one of the Biden family’s foreign entanglements, but won’t be publicly identified because the Biden administration no longer requires U.S. universities to disclose that funding to Americans.
9. Why Is the Biden Administration Scrambling?
The corporate media is clearly on Biden’s side so why can’t his administration pull itself together enough to give direct answers to questions that badly need answering?
Releasing statements that are “incomplete at best, misleading at worst” or mumbling excuses about Corvettes and locked closets does nothing but deepen Americans’ distrust in the incompetent administration in charge of handling this mess.
After days of running cover for the president, some corporate media mouthpieces are now willing to admit that the Biden administration’s scrambling looks like a coverup of something bigger.
“It looks like they were trying to kind of hide that and cover that up until after the midterms,” Matt Lewis, senior columnist for The Daily Beast, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
