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The U.S. Department of Justice notified House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan it won’t give his panel access to most of the information he has requested regarding the probe into President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified and sensitive documents.
In a letter sent to Jordan and GOP Rep. Mike Johnson, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte cites a handful of “special rules” governing special counsel probes that bar the Justice Department from releasing such information to the public.
“Your letter also requests non-public information that is central to the ongoing Special Counsel investigation. The Department’s longstanding policy is to maintain the confidentiality of such information regarding open matters. This policy protects the American people’s interest in the evenhanded, dispassionate, and effective administration of justice. Disclosing non-public information about ongoing investigations could violate statutory requirements or court orders, reveal road maps of our investigations, and interfere with the Department’s ability to gather facts, interview witnesses, and bring criminal prosecutions where warranted,” the letter stated.
“Disclosures to Congress about active investigations risk jeopardizing those investigations and creating the appearance that Congress may be exerting improper political pressure or attempting to influence Department decisions in certain cases. Judgments about whether and how to pursue a matter are, and must remain, the exclusive responsibility of the Department,” the DOJ letter continues.
“The Special Counsel regulations establish procedures for disclosing certain information to Congress at the onset and conclusion of a Special Counsel investigation.” the letter states. “These regulations govern the Department’s conduct in all Special Counsel investigations.”
DOJ responds to Chairman Jordan’s request for info on the Biden special counsel probe:
“Disclosures to Congress about active investigations risk jeopardizing those investigations and creating the appearance that Congress may be exerting improper political pressure…” 1/2 pic.twitter.com/w5DAtTUuKG
— Ben Siegel (@bensiegel) January 30, 2023
Last week, Jordan requested information about the classified documents that were stored at Biden’s think tank as well as his home in Delaware. Jordan also said he was open to issuing a subpoena.
“Our Members are rightly concerned about the Justice Department’s double standard here, after all, some of the Biden documents were found at a think tank that’s received funds from communist China. “It is concerning, to say the least, that the Department is more interested in playing politics than cooperating,” Jordan’s office said.
Earlier this week, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee sounded off on President Biden after the FBI 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.
“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.
