OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee sounded off on President Joe Biden anew after the FBI reportedly found additional potential classified materials at his Wilmington, Del., home last week.
According to reports, FBI agents discovered several notebooks containing handwritten information Biden jotted down while serving as vice president under Barack Obama. It’s possible that some of the information is classified, Fox News reported. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) wants to know, as the probe into Biden’s possession of other classified materials is of the “utmost importance.”
“Nothing that Joe Biden’s done with respect to mishandling these classified documents is normal,” Comer told “Fox & Friends First” Monday morning.
“Take into consideration that he’s also being investigated for influence peddling with our adversaries around the world, and it’s even more concerning. Look, more information comes out every day where his son, especially, as well as his two brothers, have had shady business dealings with our adversaries around the world, and part of what they would do when they would make a pitch to these shady characters in these foreign countries is proving to them that they actually had direct access to their brother and that they had direct access to people at the highest levels of our federal government,” the Kentucky Republican continued.
“So when we learned that Joe Biden had classified documents from all over the place and that Hunter Biden especially lived in his house where he had those classified documents, we became extra concerned, and that’s why … this investigation is of the utmost importance for the United States Congress as well as the American people,” he added.
WATCH:
NBC News noted last week: “The notebooks were seized because Biden’s notes on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may refer to classified information, this same person said, adding that the notebooks do not have classified markings on them, but some of the handwritten notes inside them could be considered as such given their sensitive content.
“Other pages in the notebooks, while they may not contain potentially classified information, could still be considered government property under the Presidential Records Act because they pertain to official business Biden conducted as vice president, according to the person familiar with the investigation,” the report continued.
“The notebooks include a mix of handwritten notes from Biden on various topics, both personal and official, according to the person familiar with the seizure. On some pages Biden wrote down things about his family or his life unrelated to public office, said this same person. On other pages, he memorialized in writing some of his experiences or thoughts as vice president at the time, according to this same source,” NBC News noted further.
A source told the outlet that Biden kept a large number of notebooks but it isn’t clear how many were confiscated by FBI agents.
The report added:
Biden’s possession of notebooks from his time as vice president that include notes about official business he conducted in that role raises questions about whether he appropriately followed procedures for preserving presidential records. It also raises questions about whether the notebooks are considered personal or official, and how other vice presidents and presidents who kept similar notebooks while in office have handled theirs.
Federal law allows presidents and vice presidents to write and, upon leaving office, keep diaries and notes of a “personal” nature, so long as they hadn’t shared the material with anyone in the time they held office.
Former Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton, both Democrats, have publicly announced that they turned over all classified documents to the National Archives and Records Administration when they left office.
“Consistent with the Presidential Records Act, all of President Obama’s classified records were submitted to the National Archives upon leaving office. NARA continues to assume physical and legal custody of President Obama’s materials to date,” Obama’s office said in an email.
“All of President Clinton’s classified materials were properly turned over to NARA in accordance with the Presidential Records Act,” a Clinton spokesperson told Fox News.
