On Sunday, in response to the discovery of President Biden’s classified records, Representative John Garamendi, D-Calif., called the situation an embarrassment.
The Democrat from California was interviewed on a news program and asked whether he thought there was a two-tier justice system within the Department of Justice and what the D.O.J. should do to reassure the public.
Garamendi said that the Justice Department would continue in the manner they have been. Since a special counsel has been appointed and is currently reviewing the documents along with the entire issue, inquiries into the recently discovered classified materials will resume. He continued by saying that he doesn’t have to speculate about what President Biden said when he was told that these papers had been discovered in his office in Washington; he knows it was an ‘Oh’ followed by a four-letter expletive.
After discovering a third set of classified documents from Biden’s tenure as Vice President at his Wilmington, Delaware, home the previous day, Garamendi expressed his opinion on the matter – without a shadow of a doubt, it’s an embarrassment. He adds that he is doubtful that there is more to it but that more will be learned as the special counsel goes about their work.
Richard Sauber, the President’s special counsel, released a statement Thursday evening saying that six classified documents had been taken from Biden’s house, and five more pages had been identified with classified markings.
After finding one confidential document at Biden’s house on Wednesday, Sauber said Biden’s attorneys stopped looking for more because they lacked the requisite security clearances.
Sauber asserted he went to Wilmington on Thursday night to help the President’s lawyer hand over the documents he discovered on Wednesday to the Justice Department since he has the security clearance.
He added that while handing it off to the D.O.J. officers who had accompanied him, five more pages bearing classification markings were found in the stack of papers. The D.O.J. agents with him had immediately taken custody of the documents.
Following reports of finding classified documents in Biden’s garage and at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, these five additional documents were discovered. On Monday, the Biden administration made it known to the public for the first time that on November 2, 2022, the President’s lawyers were packing files from his old office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank founded in 2018 by the University of Pennsylvania, when they discovered classified markings on documents in a locked closet dating back to Biden’s time as Vice President under President Barack Obama.
According to the White House, they immediately handed the classified documents to the National Archives.
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had appointed Robert Hur, former U.S. attorney, to serve as Special Counsel in an investigation of Biden’s handling of sensitive data.
Garland believes Mr. Hur will do well and follow the department’s best standards.
John Garamendi is not the only Californian Democrat to address this issue.
On Sunday, California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said Attorney General Merrick Garland did the right thing by hiring a special counsel to ensure that justice is administered fairly and that the public is satisfied with the appearance of justice.
In his opinion, Schiff said Garland had no choice but to appoint a special counsel.