President Joe Biden has tried to protect his son Hunter, under persistent scrutiny for controversial foreign business dealings, from an onslaught of political attacks since announcing his 2020 campaign.
But the discovery of classified documents at the president’s Wilmington, Delaware, home, which his adult son listed as his own address as recently as 2018, has exposed both Bidens to criticism as House Republicans start providing congressional oversight.
A photograph of Hunter Biden is in the dictionary under “bad political optics,” former Republican strategist John Pitney quipped.
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But “two things work to the president’s advantage,” Claremont McKenna College’s Roy Crocker American politics professor told the Washington Examiner. “First, it’s not clear that Hunter Biden even knew of the documents’ existence. Second, people will soon be sick of hearing about Hunter Biden.”
There are many unanswered questions regarding why Joe Biden had classified documents from his vice presidency at his think tank’s Washington, D.C., office and his Wilmington residence, in addition to the circumstances under which they were found. But Republicans dispute Pitney’s second contention.
New House Oversight Committee and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY), whose revamped panel dedicates part of its website to its “Biden Family Investigation,” has already sent a letter to White House counsel Stuart Delery related to Hunter Biden and the Wilmington documents, most of which were in the president’s garage.
“Documents on file with the committee reveal the same address appeared on Hunter Biden’s driver’s license as recently as 2018,” Comer wrote. “The committee is concerned President Biden stored classified documents at the same location his son resided while engaging in international business deals with adversaries of the United States.”
Comer’s information requests pertain to Joe Biden’s classified documents, the people responsible for searching for them, where they looked, and communication between the White House, the Department of Justice, and the National Archives. But the Republican National Committee has been less circumspect on Hunter Biden.
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“We know that Hunter Biden and Jay Leno’s film crew had access to the garage,” RNC spokesman Tommy Pigott said, referring to the now-viral video of Joe Biden reversing his prized 1967 Corvette Stingray up his driveway. “So far, the ‘excuse’ we’ve gotten is that the Biden papers were stored in three separate insecure locations by ‘mistake.’ That doesn’t explain how they got there or why so many people had access.”
A senior Republican official added, “Americans can connect the dots. This scandal isn’t disappearing, nor is Hunter. The sketchy dealings, the lack of transparency, and the family business will finally get the scrutiny it deserves.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pushed on the access issue twice this week but declined to commit the administration to publishing Joe Biden’s Wilmington visitor logs.
“Let’s not forget what we did here in this White House,” she said. “We instituted something that the last administration got rid of, which is putting out the White House, making sure that there was a White House log — an extensive White House log — so the American people got to see.”
Despite promises to be candid, White House disclosure regarding the Wilmington documents this week came after reporting that classified materials had been identified at a second location. Attorney General Merrick Garland then revealed during a press conference, in which he announced he had appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter, that the Wilmington records had been recovered last month. Joe Biden and his aides had only acknowledged the first batch and demurred when asked about the likelihood there could be more.
Former Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, a Democrat, complimented Garland’s decision to tap special counsel Robert Hur after selecting Jack Smith to investigate former President Donald Trump’s own mismanagement of classified documents, as well as his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“He went a step further by appointing former Maryland U.S. Attorney Hur, a Donald Trump appointee,” Gansler said of Garland. “Hur will be thorough and will certainly uncover any juxtaposition to Hunter Biden, should such a thing exist.”
But onetime Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins, a George W. Bush pick, compared the Justice Department’s treatment of Joe Biden to that of Trump. The White House has underscored the differences between the cases, including the number of classified documents and Joe Biden’s and Trump’s cooperation with federal authorities.
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“Democrats make fair and even-handed administration of justice look so much harder than it needs to be,” Cummins said. “The hypocrisy is evident for all to see. Anyone claiming to be a journalist who writes anything about this administration without somewhere using the word ‘hypocrisy’ is a clown.”
Hunter Biden faces his own federal investigation, though the Delaware U.S. attorney is understood to have narrowed the scope of his inquiry from the younger Biden’s foreign dealings in China and Ukraine to an alleged illegal tax deduction of $30,000 in business expenses and for lying about his substance abuse problems when he bought a gun. The House Republican investigations remain broader amid concerns Hunter Biden improperly traded off of his father and their last name. Comer this week also demanded that the Treasury Department turn over any unusual activity connected to the president’s son.
