Senator Dick Durbin said it is “unthinkable” how President Joe Biden could have bypassed measures in place to ensure classified documents are kept safe. The President has come under fire after a series of files marked classified were recovered at Biden’s former office in DC as well as his Delaware residence over the past two months. Durbin joined other Democrats in expressing their frustration at both POTUS and the White House’s response to the ongoing investigation over the the handling of the documents.
Durbin said: “When it comes to members of Congress and classified documents, we go through an elaborate, careful process even to read one of these pieces of paper.
“The thought of keeping them on our desk to get around to later, or taking them home, or out of the office, is unthinkable at this level. So I don’t understand what has happened here.”
The Dem Senator had previously highlighted the many steps he and other Congress members are required to follow when handling classified files.
Speaking to CNN, he said: “I’m concerned there’s a standard that we follow when it comes to members of Congress and classified information.
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“The door to our office is closed, the person who presents the document takes it out of a locked briefcase, hands it to me and watches me as I read it.
“When I finish reading it he takes it back and puts it in the briefcase and leaves the scene. That’s how carefully we review these documents.
“To think any of those documents in boxes, in storage from one place to the other, is just unacceptable.”
Even close Biden ally Adam Schiff earlier this month insisted on reviewing the files found at the President’s private residence and former office to ensure national security was not breached.
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“I think that would be appropriate and consistent with what we requested in the case of Mar-a-Lago.”
And members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have accused the White House of stonewalling them by refusing access to the files recovered at Biden’s home as well as the ones found at Mar-a-Lago and vice president Mike Pence’s home.
Committee chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said: “It is our responsibility to make sure that we, in the role of the intelligence oversight, know if there’s been any intelligence compromised.”
Warner and the panel’s vice chairman, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, held a joint news conference after they walked out of the meeting.
Members of Congress have sought access to the materials, or at least a risk assessment detailing what was within them, since the discovery of documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last summer.
But they say the administration has objected, arguing they can’t provide that access as two special counsels at the Justice Department are investigating Trump and Biden’s handling of the documents.
