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Biden on Classified Docs Discovery: ‘There’s No There There’

President Joe Biden said Thursday there is “no there there” when he was questioned about the discovery of classified documents and official records at his home and former office.

“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said to reporters who questioned him during a tour of the damage from storms in California. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”

Biden said he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”

“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he said. “There’s no there there.”

The White House has disclosed that Biden attorneys found classified documents and official records on four occasions in recent months — on Nov. 2 at the offices of the Penn Biden Center in Washington, and then in follow up searches on Dec. 20 in the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and on Jan. 11 and 12 in the president’s home library.

The discovery complicates a federal probe into former President Donald Trump, who the Justice Department says took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government.

The two cases are different — Biden for example, willingly turned over the documents once found. But the issue is wearing on the president and his aides, who have repeatedly said they acted swiftly and appropriately when the documents were discovered and are working to be as transparent as possible though key questions remain unanswered.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed Robert Hur, a former Maryland U.S. attorney, to serve as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s inquiry into the documents. Garland said the extraordinary circumstances warranted a special counsel, and he also made the decision in part to show the Justice Department’s “commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.”

Hur is taking over for federal prosecutor John Lausch, who was initially asked to review the documents and whose team has already been interviewing former Biden aides responsible for packing up boxes during his time as vice president. Those interviews include Kathy Chung, who served as an administrative assistant during that time, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Biden expressed frustration that the documents matter was coming up as he surveyed coastal storm damage, telling reporters that it “bugs me” that he was being asked about the handling of the classified material even as “we have a serious problem here” in California.

“The American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that,” he pressed.

Biden’s team has faced criticism for its fragmented disclosures — the public wasn’t notified of the documents until early January and after that the additional findings dripped out slowly. It has occasionally led to heated exchanges between reporters and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the White House briefing room. She ran into trouble when she suggested last Friday that all documents had been recovered, only to have an additional discovery disclosed over the weekend.

Biden said Thursday he has “no regrets” over how and when the public learned about the documents.

“I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do,” he said. 
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First Illinois Muslim American Lawmakers Begin Work in Diverse Legislature

Walking through the center of the city in the shadow of the looming domes of two state Capitol buildings — the old one and the new — it’s hard to miss the signs of history marked throughout Springfield, Illinois, the launching pad of the political careers of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.

“It is surreal to know that Abraham Lincoln was in the same position as me at one point,” said Nabeela Syed while standing in front of a statue of the “Great Emancipator” at the entrance to the current Illinois state Capitol.

While Lincoln made a name for himself at the old Capitol building a few blocks away, history is very much on the mind of Syed as she walks amid the rows of well-polished wooden desks and leather chairs lined up on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives.

“Our tour guide said he actually took a picture of Barack Obama in the same exact place that me and my family were posing,” Syed told Voice of America. “So, to think about the history that exists here in Springfield and the history that we’re contributing, it’s an incredible feeling.”

Making history

Syed and her colleague Abdelnasser Rashid are about to make their own history as the 103rd Legislative session in Illinois gets underway. They are the first Muslim American lawmakers ever elected to the Statehouse.

“I think considering that Illinois has the highest per capita population of Muslims, I do wish it happened sooner, because I know the importance of representation,” Syed said.

In November, Syed defeated an incumbent Republican to win her suburban Chicago district.

“Not only am I Democrat, but I am a hijab-wearing Muslim, Indian American woman,” said Syed. “Our values, the way that we communicate our message, the way we engage our community, went beyond those things that people consider obstacles, and we flipped our district.”

At 23, Syed is also among the youngest women ever elected in Illinois and begins her term among other notable firsts in the Illinois House of Representatives, led by the first Black speaker, with the first female Republican House leader, and the largest Asian American caucus in the General Assembly.

“As the first Palestinian elected to the legislature and as one of two Muslims, I also carry the voices of so many people who have been marginalized and have been yearning for representation. And I take that responsibility very seriously,” said Rashid, who now represents a suburban Chicago district with a large Latino population.

“It is not just about adding the number of colored faces, it is more about perspectives and strategies and position. That’s why I think they got the support from the broader community, not only the Muslim population alone,” said Kikue Hamayotsu, a political science professor at Northern Illinois University.

She credits Rashid and Syed’s successful election campaigns to their focus and messaging on the issues concerning voters and not necessarily their identity.

“The things and policies they talked about are more about imminent important issues such as reproductive health, abortion law. Also gender issues, religious freedom at a time when religious conservatism is rising to influence politics,” Hamayotsu said.

“I think the lesson of my election and Nabeela’s election and so many more — it’s not just Muslims,” said Rashid. “It’s folks like Hoan Huynh, a Vietnamese refugee who was elected. People like Sharon Chung, a Korean-American who was elected. The number of people who are in the Illinois legislature is reflective of the diversity of our state. This is something that we should take pride in, and something that we should embrace so that our government continues to reflect the wishes of its people. I think where we have a strong healthy vibrant democracy, we’ll have better outcomes for all of us.”

‘Our democracy is composed of us’

As he reflects on a long, memorable day that included his swearing-in ceremony, Rashid was hopeful about the signal his and Syed’s elections send to others with similar backgrounds who may be debating their own political careers.

“My election gives confidence to people who may have been hesitant to run but now realize that they can. I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘I didn’t think that you could win, and now my eyes are open,” he said.

Syed hopes others who also wear the hijab might see her as an example of what is possible instead of what is not.

“Our democracy is composed of us,” she told VOA. “And we are contributing to making America amazing.”

While Illinois is a reliably “blue” state, Rashid and Syed’s election wins helped Democrats increase the party’s overall influence in state politics. In the 118-member Illinois House of Representatives, 40 seats are now held by Republicans and 78 by Democrats — one of the largest party majorities in state history.
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Illinois’ First Muslim American Lawmakers Begin Work in Diverse Legislature

Illinois’ first Muslim lawmakers are now serving in the Midwestern state’s increasingly diverse House of Representatives. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from the state capital, Springfield.
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White House Gives Few Details About Additional Classified Documents Found at Biden’s Home

The White House faced a new barrage of criticism Tuesday about the weekend announcement that lawyers found a third tranche of classified documents at the president’s private home.

Administration officials emphasized they are being cooperative with investigators and transparent with the public and are drawing a contrast between their behavior and that of former President Donald Trump.

However, in a half-hour call with reporters, White House spokesperson Ian Sams declined to offer any details beyond the few the administration already has reported about the unknown number of documents found in private offices and homes used by President Joe Biden.

And while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fielded multiple questions on the issue, she stressed repeatedly that the White House would not provide too many details while an investigation was underway. Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the potential mishandling of classified documents by Biden.

“While we may be constrained from being able to provide a ton of facts as this investigation is ongoing, we’re being very forthright that we’re being cooperative with the Justice Department,” said Sams, special assistant to the president and senior adviser to the White House counsel’s office. “And that’s such a stark contrast. I mean, you listen to these House Republicans … they’re faking outrage about disclosure and transparency.”

On Saturday, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement that officials found six pages’ worth of classified documents in Biden’s private library at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. He said those documents were immediately turned over to the Justice Department.

The latest discovery adds to a trove found in December in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington home, and another set found in November in an office in Washington that he used.

Biden said after the first discovery was announced last week that he was “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,” he added.

Previously, the Justice Department retrieved about 300 documents at various levels of classification from Trump’s Florida home.

Unanswered questions

In Tuesday’s call with reporters, the White House did not give comprehensive responses to questions about why they delayed by days or weeks in announcing the document discoveries, what the parameters were for the searches, whether they are done searching, what’s in the documents themselves and how many there are, and whether Biden would sit for an interview with the special counsel if he is asked.

Trump, on his social media network, sought to contrast his case with Biden’s, saying that he “did NOTHING wrong [and] have the right as President to “declassify.”

Trump added that he kept the documents securely and that “Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone!”

Biden’s Republican critics have promised swift action.

“President Biden’s three strikes against transparency will be met with swift congressional oversight,” James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in a statement on Saturday. “The White House, the National Archives, and the Justice Department failed to promptly inform Congress and the American people about mishandled classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president.”

When asked if the White House would cooperate with Congress, Sams said, “We’re reviewing those letters. We’ll make a determination about our response in due course. But of course, we’re going to call it out when we see rampant hypocrisy that shows a total lack of credibility when it comes to these requests.”

Walter Shaub, a senior ethics fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, told VOA via email that while the administration was right to promptly inform Justice Department officials after they found the documents, “things might have come out better for the Biden White House if they had done a better job [of]] communicating with the public. At a minimum, they should have been forthcoming with all relevant details when the media first asked about President Biden’s retention of the records.”

“It may be understandable that the administration didn’t alert the public immediately” when they first discovered the documents, he said, but “at some point, they owed the public information. It would have been nice if the administration made an announcement before the media learned that President Biden had discovered classified records in his possession. … That was a breach of trust with the public.”

Jean-Pierre questioned whether the public was preoccupied with what is turning out to be a political headache for the Biden administration, which faces stiff opposition in the new Congress.

“That’s for the American people to decide, right?” she said.

Time and tension

The White House said the Biden administration is aware of its responsibility to inform the public, but it noted there are legal considerations.

“We understand that there’s a tension between the need to be cooperative with an ongoing DoJ investigation and rightful demands for additional public information,” Sams said.

Jordan Strauss, a former Justice Department official and former White House staffer, said that often happens in legal matters.

“It is not common for the public to learn about investigations at the investigation stage,” said Strauss, now a managing director at Kroll, a risk and financial advisory solutions firm.

Strauss said the outcome is not inevitable — some of the found documents, which date from Biden’s time as vice president, might no longer be classified.

The one thing that is sure, he said, is that this will take time.

“Right now, I suspect that the president’s lawyers are conducting a very thorough investigation on their own to try to figure out what’s happened, and they probably don’t want to share information until they’ve definitively established what happened and what did not,” he said. “And that’s not a short process in almost any criminal case, or civil case.”

Until this is resolved, questions will continue to hit the White House.

“You guys can ask me this 100 times, 200 times if you wish,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday, after fielding several questions on the issue. ”I’m going to keep saying the same thing. I hear your question. It’s been asked. And answered. It’s been noted. And we’re just going to try to move on here.”
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