Biden ‘has confidence’ in White House team as fallout from classified documents continues

GOP continues to cry foul while facing its own backlash for response to Trump’s trove

President Joe Biden took no questions about the ongoing investigation into his own handling of classified documents on Tuesday while his press secretary insisted that he had confidence in the team responsible for managing the situation in the public eye.

The president appeared alongside the NBC champion Golden State Warriors at the White House, an event that was by far the most interesting thing to occur at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave while most of DC’s drama occurred a few blocks away at the Capitol where Republicans finalised committee assignments for the 118th Congress.

At press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s afternoon briefing, attended by Golden State shooting great Steph Curry, Ms Jean-Pierre once again fielded questions about the twin classified document scandals now enveloping two presidents. This time, the questions focused more on whether the president was happy with the way the situation was being handled, which has grown into only more of a headache with the discovery of a second trove of vice presidential materials at his Wilmington residence, which in itself is the second location they have been found.

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“Does President Biden have confidence in the way that his team is handling this, with this trickle-out of information and the documents being found day-after-day?” one reporter pressed Ms Jean-Pierre on Tuesday.

“The president has confidence,” she responded. “The president and his team rightfully took action when they learned that the documents existed, they reached out to the Archives, they reached out to the Department of Justice.”

She pledged that the White House would continue to “fully cooperate” with the appropriate authorities on the matter, and described Mr Biden’s mood as “very clear” as the situation continues.

The comments come after Mr Biden made the first of his own on the matter before the weekend; he was confronted by Fox’s Peter Doocy, who questioned him, “what were you thinking?” after documents were found in a locked garage “next to [his] Corvette” at the president’s Wilmington residence.

"I'm going to get the chance to speak on all of this, God willing it'll be soon, but I said earlier this week — and by the way my Corvette is in a locked garage. It's not like it's sitting out in the street," Mr Biden said to Mr Doocy on Thursday.

“[A]s I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified material seriously,” he continued.

The president faces the uncomfortable prospect of drawing accusations of a double standard on the part of federal law enforcement over the matter – unfair as the exact comparison may be – thanks to the way in which Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was raided last year by the FBI following months of back-and-forth between the ex-president and the National Archives. Mr Biden’s choice to handle the matter by the books, at least by all appearances, has earned him a very different type of treatment from the Department of Justice.

That could end up undermining the credibility of the DoJ in the months to come if the agency moves forward with an effort to prosecute Mr Trump either over his own stash of classified presidential materials or the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat which culminated in the January 6 attack on Congress.

Mr Biden also faces much more basic accusations of hypocrisy as a result of the scandal, thanks to his public chiding of the former president in the wake of last year’s stunning raid at Mar-a-Lago. At the time, the president expressed disbelief that his predecessor would have potentially been careless or willfully obfuscative about classified presidential records.

Speaking to 60 Minutes in September, he wondered aloud how “anyone could be that irresponsible” and also questioned “what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods” used by US intelligence agencies.

His own insistence that he has been careful with the handling of classified materials is understandably in question with the discovery of classified materials at two locations, some of which were in a garage.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have predictably lit up the White House and president over the revelations, vowing investigations with their newfound congressional power and even in some cases raising conspiracies about Chinese agents supposedly having access to the files.

The White House addressed those remarks on a separate call with reporters on Tuesday solely centred around the documents issue; White House counsel’s office spokesperson Ian Sams derided what he called “rampant hypocrisy that shows a total lack of credibility when it comes to these requests” from Republicans, who many have noted showed little of the same interest when a much larger stash of classified materials were found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

The Biden family highly concerns me.

Joe, Hunter, and even “Dr.” Jill.

They are compromised and must be investigated.

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) January 10, 2023

But some Democrats are refusing to give the administration a pass as well, including Adam Schiff – former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Though Mr Schiff was booted off his committee on Tuesday by speaker Kevin McCarthy, he has called for an intelligence assessment into the risks of Mr Biden’s retention of the documents. That call has yet to be embraced by Democratic leadership. Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has also requested a congressional briefing on the matter.

While there was little prospect of Mr Biden’s party pursuing major new legislation in the now-divided Congress, the new revelations have sapped much of the president’s political strength just as he was coming off a stronger-than-expected midterm performance by the Democrats that shocked the GOP and left Mr Trump’s allies seething in the wake of major defeats in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

He has yet to formally declare his intentions for 2024, a move that is expected to occur over the next 12 months as the next election cycle gets unofficially underway.

His potential general election opponent, Donald Trump, officially tossed his hat into the ring last year and is expected to spend much of 2023 attempting to solidify his control over the Republican Party despite the defeats of his acolytes in seveal key races last November; that will probably send him back to the campaign trail for more of his signature rallies in the months ahead and may draw Mr Biden or other Democrats into the race sooner rather than later.