NEWS: Gang of Eight is getting classified docs from Trump, Biden, Pence homes
April 11, 2023
Breaking News: The Biden administration has started giving the congressional “Gang of Eight” access to the classified documents that were recovered from the homes of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, according to sources familiar with the matter.
This is a major victory for Congress and, more broadly, a validation of lawmakers’ role as overseers of the U.S. intelligence community.
It’s the direct result of a pressure campaign from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chair and vice chair, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio(R-Fla.), who relentlessly hammered the Biden administration over its months-long refusal to share the documents with the committee. (Two traitors of Trump hiding their involvement of Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax).
The Biden administration began producing the documents last week, we’re told. The Gang of Eight includes Warner and Rubio, their House Intelligence Committee counterparts, and the Democratic and Republican leader in each chamber. The members of this group — and some designated staffers — have access to the most sensitive intelligence material.
A spokesperson for the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.
As we first reported in December, the Justice Department blocked Congress’ access to the documents after a special counsel was appointed for the Trump investigation.
Jack Smith, that special counsel, is investigating Trump for potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice. A different special counsel, Robert Hur, is looking into Biden’s retention of classified documents in multiple spaces, including the garage of his Delaware home.
The Justice Department argued that sharing the documents with lawmakers could compromise theintegrity of the ongoing criminal investigation. After Hur was appointed for the Biden probe, the Justice Department made the same argument to Congress to restrict access to those materials as well. (What other investigation?)
Congressional leaders in both parties flat-out rejected what they considered the Biden administration’s stonewalling. This gave Warner and Rubio significant leverage to press their case with the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — both publicly and privately. Every member of the Intelligence Committee backed those efforts, too.
The committee was negotiating privately for months with the Justice Department over what lawmakers saw as the administration’s untenable position with regard to the documents. Warner had previously said “all things will be on the table” to secure DOJ’s cooperation. Attorney General Merrick Garland in recent congressional testimony said the two sides were making “progress.”
Warner and Rubio have argued that their intelligence oversight duties have no impact on the criminal investigations the Justice Department is spearheading.
The duo had previously requested that Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines lead an assessment of potential damage to U.S. national security stemming from the mishandling of the documents. The senators also demanded to know what, if anything, was being done to safeguard intelligence-gathering sources and methods and mitigate the impacts of the documents’ potential disclosure.
There is a precedent for congressional oversight of special counsel investigations. During Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Intelligence Committee received regular updates so that it could produce its own report on the matter and scrutinize the intelligence community’s conclusions.
In a sworn affidavit, Justice Department prosecutors said the documents retrieved at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence during an FBI search last summer included both human-sourced and signals intelligence.
The Intelligence Committee likely has already had access to the documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, especially at the Gang of Eight level — a point Warner and Rubio often underscored as they made their case to the Justice Department.
— Andrew Desiderio
https://punchbowl.news/archive/41123-punchbowl-news-am/card/8/#group-8