Senate Intel Committee leaders say briefing on classified doc scandals ‘left much to be desired’

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said a Tuesday briefing by the intelligence community and the Justice Department on the mishandling of classified documents by President Biden and former President Donald Trump “left much to be desired.” 

“In accordance with our responsibility to oversee the Intelligence Community and protect our national security, today we met with leaders from the IC and the Justice Department to discuss the exposure of classified documents,” Senate Intel Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a joint statement.

“While today’s meeting helped shed some light on these issues, it left much to be desired and we will continue to press for full answers to our questions in accordance with our constitutional oversight obligations,” the pair added. 

Warner and Rubio had demanded to see the classified documents seized by the Justice Department at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home and former Washington, DC, office. 

They had also asked for risk assessment from top intelligence officials to determine the threat to national security that the two alleged violations of the Presidential Records Act posed.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines earlier this month, the senators called their requests “narrowly tailored,” dismissing the DOJ’s argument that the documents can’t be shared because of the ongoing investigations.  

It’s unclear if the Senate panel was allowed to view the sensitive documents obtained by the DOJ from Trump and Biden. 

Some 300 classified documents were seized by the FBI from the 76-year-old former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August, after allegedly failing to turn over boxes of material from his time in the White House to the National Archives. 

In January, CBS News reported that about a dozen classified documents, some reportedly concerning Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, from Biden’s days as vice president were discovered by the 80-year-old president’s lawyers in November 2022 at the Penn Biden Center think tank.  

Sweeps of Biden’s Wilmington property by his lawyers and then the FBI later turned up more classified material from his time as veep and his Senate career.