The Biden administration is cooperating with the congressional “Gang of Eight” to give them access to classified documents that were recovered from the homes of former President Donald Trump, President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, Fox News has confirmed.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Vice Chair Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., had for months pressured the administration to share the documents with their committee, citing their oversight responsibilities. The Department of Justice began sharing the documents last week, Punchbowl News first reported.
The Gang of Eight includes the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and the top leaders in Congress – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
The Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate Trump for potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.
Hundreds of documents were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in a search and seizure last year after the former president neglected to hand them over to law enforcement. Attorneys for Biden later disclosed that a handful of classified materials dating to his time as vice president and a senator were found in multiple places, including his Delaware home.
Garland appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.
NINE BOXES OF BIDEN DOCUMENTS WERE TAKEN FROM BOSTON OFFICE
The Justice Department previously refused to share the recovered documents with lawmakers, asserting that doing so would compromise ongoing criminal investigations into Trump and Biden. Intelligence committee lawmakers accused the Biden administration of stonewalling.
Gang of Eight lawmakers received a briefing on the alleged mishandling of classified documents by the executive branch in February, though at the time Warner and Rubio said the briefing “left much to be desired.”
They pushed the administration to clarify whether U.S. national security was damaged by the alleged mishandling of these documents, and whether steps were being taken to protect intelligence-gathering sources and methods should details from the documents be leaked.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR: TIMELINE OF BIDEN’S CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS DEBACLE
The Biden administration’s previous reluctance to share the documents frustrated lawmakers in both parties. After several months passed with no progress, Rubio threatened “consequences” for the Justice Department last week, suggesting that Congress may cut funding if the administration did not work with their overseers.
“They’re ruining their relationship with a committee that has always been very responsible and a very good working partner with them,” Rubio told The Hill.
“There’s no doubt that there’s going to be consequences for it. There has to be. We have to protect our role on oversight. And the way you do that, unfortunately, is to leverage [the power] that appropriations and authorizations give us. We would prefer not to, but if we have to, we will.”
Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.
