The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee announced Friday that it was launching its first probe related to President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.
The announcement of the investigation came one day after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to look into the matter.
On Thursday, the White House confirmed that President Biden's legal team discovered "a small number" of Obama-Biden administration documents at his house in Wilmington, Delaware, in December. Days earlier, an attorney for the president said Biden's lawyers in early November had discovered other classified records at his former office space in Washington.
Neither discovery was confirmed by the White House until this week – and only after media reports first revealed them.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the panel, and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., penned a letter to Attorney General Garland requesting documents and communications releated to the matter be produced no later than Friday, Jan. 27. News of the investigation was first reported by Fox News.
"We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C., private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware, residence," the two lawmakers wrote in a letter to Garland on Friday.
The two Republican lawmakers wrote that it was "unclear when the Department first came to learn about the existence of these documents, and whether it actively concealed this information from the public on the eve of the 2022 elections."
The lawmakers also sought information related to the appointment of Robert Hur, former U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland under President Donald Trump, as special counsel.
"The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines," they wrote. "We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry."
Hur was a close ally of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a key figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and contacts between then-candidate Trump's associates and Russian officials. He also worked as an adviser to FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Justice Department.
Reps. Jordan and Johnson are far from the only Republicans who have called for action in this matter. Ohio's Rep. Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a "damage assessment" of potentially classified documents.
“Those entrusted with access to classified information have a duty and an obligation to protect it,” Turner wrote in a letter to Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence. “This issue demands a full and thorough review.”
The appointment of yet another special counsel to investigate the handling of classified documents is a remarkable turn of events, legally and politically, for a Justice Department that has spent months looking into the retention by Trump of more than 300 documents with classification markings found at the former president’s Florida estate.
Though the situations are factually and legally different, the discovery of classified documents at two separate locations tied to Biden — as well as the appointment of a new special counsel — would almost certainly complicate any prosecution that the department might bring against Trump.
Irrespective of the Justice Department review, the revelation that Biden potentially mishandled classified or presidential records could prove to be a political headache for the president, who called Trump's decision to keep hundreds of such records at his private club in Florida "irresponsible."
Biden has said he was "surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office" but his lawyers "did what they should have done" when they immediately called the National Archives.
The revelation also may complicate the Justice Department's consideration of whether to bring charges against Trump, who is trying to win back the White House in 2024 and has repeatedly claimed the department's inquiry into his own conduct amounted to "corruption."
There are significant differences between the Trump and Biden situations, including the gravity of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the Mar-a-Lago matter.
Biden addressed the new revelation at a White House event Thursday celebrating the recent inflation and unemployment figures.
"People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously," Biden said.
"My lawyer has reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president were stored, and they finished the review last night," Biden continued. "They discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home, in my personal library."
"We're going to see all of this unfold, I'm confident," Biden said.