Top Republican Mike Turner says if ‘serial classified documents hoarder’ Joe Biden is not criminally charged, it will show that the Department of Justice is not ‘pursuing Democrats.’
It was revealed last week that the special counsel appointed to probe the improper storage of classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home and think tank is expected to wrap up soon without filing any criminal charges against the president.
Turner, who serves as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), addressed the reports that Special Counsel Robert Hur is not going to charge Biden, calling it ‘devastating.’
‘Well, this will be certainly devastating, and continuing to be devastating to the Department of Justice and to the Biden administration with their two-tier system of justice,’ Turner said on CBS ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday.
‘You know, Biden has been found to be a serial classified document hoarder over a 10-year period. He’s been taking classified documents, some of the most sensitive that threaten our national security home without any protection. And certainly, you know, able to, for others to be able to access them,’ he continued.
‘I’m very disappointed in the response we’re getting from ODNI,’ said Turner
‘There needs to be consequences,’ said the chairman.
‘The fact that Hillary Clinton, who had over 100 classified documents when she was secretary of state and Vice President Biden under Obama were taking classified documents home and certainly had them be vulnerable, with no consequences, shows the Department of Justice is not pursuing Democrats.’
Turner told DailyMail.com last week that he was ‘disappointed’ that there is seemingly no movement in President Biden’s classified documents investigation.
‘We are very disappointed that there’s nothing that appears to be happening on that case,’ Turner told DailyMail.com on Thursday.
Turner, who has seen both the Biden and Trump classified documents, say they are ‘equally national security threatening documents that should not have been outside of a controlled, classified space.’
Hur – who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January – has been interviewing the president’s aides and family members, including Biden himself and son Hunter, but has not issued any public statements throughout the process.
Hur’s team is reportedly expected to issue a ‘sharply critical’ detailed report by the end of the year, without filing any criminal charges.
In contrast, Special Counsel Jack Smith quickly indicted Trump back in July for allegedly unlawfully retaining national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.
‘Biden had these documents for over 10 years. You can’t hoard documents in your home for a decade long period, concealing them, taking them home as a senator or vice president and suddenly say hey, two weeks while I was president I cooperated and, therefore, it doesn’t count that I spent 10 years as a serial classified document hoarder,’ Turner continued on CBS.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 federal counts and his court date is set for May 2024, which is in the thick of the presidential primary.
Turner also said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is stonewalling lawmakers investigating Biden and Trump classified documents scandals.
‘I’m very disappointed in the response we’re getting from ODNI. We’ve all seen the [Trump] indictment, and I have seen classified documents from both the Biden and Trump documents. The ones that we have seen from Trump do not match the indictment.’
‘And so our inquiry is: show us how the indictment language matches to a document and show us those documents. And we have yet to get a response.’
Turner, who is from Dayton, Ohio, made the comments during a preview of a Republican report on FISA Section 702 abuses and fixes published today.
Images from a Biden campaign video show him backing up his classic Stingray into his garage. He is seen reversing his Corvette into a garage filled with papers at his Wilmington home
Boxes of potentially classified documents were discovered in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom by the DOJ
He previously told DailyMail.com that it would be ‘incredibly difficult’ to not find that President Biden had violated the law in how he handled classified materials.
Since reviewing the documents, he had also said that the ‘behavior’ displayed by Biden and described in the Trump complaint – based on their alleged mishandling of the classified materials – is ‘wrong.’
‘If you just pull out the statute, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to not conclude that Biden’s actions violate specific statutes,’ he previously said.
The chairman is particularly concerned with the potential ‘unequal application’ of the law by the Department of Justice in how it handles the Trump documents case compared to the Biden case.
Records were first unearthed in a private think tank office where the President Biden used to work in Washington in November 2022.
More documents were found in the president’s Wilmington, Delaware garage on December 20 and in his home library on January 12.
Biden has said he did not know the documents were there.