The Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat and Republican are dissatisfied with a closed-door briefing they received Tuesday about classified documents found at the homes and offices of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
(Bloomberg) — The Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat and Republican are dissatisfied with a closed-door briefing they received Tuesday about classified documents found at the homes and offices of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Marco Rubio of Florida were among eight congressional leaders with special access to sensitive secrets who were briefed by members of intelligence agencies and the Justice Department on the public exposure of the documents.
“While today’s meeting helped shed some light on these issues, it left much to be desired and we will continue to press for full answers to our questions in accordance with our constitutional oversight obligations,” Rubio and Warner said in a joint statement.
Other members of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leaders attending in the briefing — including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — declined to comment.
Lawmakers from both parties have been calling for such briefings. The Justice Department has appointed special counsels to investigate how records with classification markings ended up at private residences of Biden and Trump.
A White House spokesman, Ian Sams, said in a statement on Tuesday night that “the decision to brief and the determination of what content would be briefed were made” independently by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he likely will be asked questions about the documents.
Since November, batches of classified records or pages with classified markings were found in Biden’s Delaware home and former office in Washington. That followed the recovery under subpoena of hundreds of documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last August.
Earlier this month, government officials searched for classified documents at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home and Washington office, after others were found by his lawyers.
–With assistance from Justin Sink.
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