Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have vowed to “impose pain” on the Biden administration until the White House allows access to classified documents found in the possession of President Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the committee’s vice chairman, hinted Wednesday that the panel could withhold funds from the intelligence community unless the administration begins to cooperate.
“I’m not in the business of threats right now,” he said after meeting with Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence. “But I’m just saying, every year, this committee has to authorize how money is spent in agencies.”
Another member of the committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), was more direct, pointing out that the panel could and would block Biden’s intelligence nominees until the White House plays ball.
“Congress will impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents,” he said.
House and Senate lawmakers have repeatedly demanded to know what was in the sensitive files despite ongoing special counsel probes into the Biden and Trump records.
“I’m very disappointed with the lack of detail and a timeline on when we’re going to get a briefing,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s chair, said after members met with Haines.
“Not on anything dealing with criminality -- that’s an appropriate Department of Justice responsibility — but it is our responsibility to make sure that we, in our role as intelligence oversight, know if there’s been any intelligence compromise,” Warner added.
“Every member of the committee, regardless of Democrat or Republican, [was] unanimous in that this position that we are left in … until somehow a special counsel designates that it’s OK for us to get briefed is not going to stand,” Warner went on. “And all things will be on the table to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Rubio agreed the administration’s position on the documents is “untenable.”
“The information we’re asking for has no bearing whatsoever or would interfere in no way with a criminal investigation,” said Rubio.
Congressional frustration has been building since the FBI discovered boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort and home, during a raid last August.
While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it planned to review the records to determine whether any national secrets were revealed, the senators said they haven’t received that assessment.
Those frustrations have only been amplified with the discovery of more classified materials at Biden’s Delaware home and in an office he once used at the Penn Biden Center in Washington — followed by the revelations this week that materials were also found in Pence’s Indiana home.
The White House press pool is also in near-open revolt as reporters continue to grill press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over details about the documents — only to be told that the matter is part of an ongoing investigation.
Members of the panel said they were able to get a look at sensitive materials during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
“There’s no reason why Congress cannot review these documents in a secure, classified setting so we can make an assessment about what damage it may have caused to national security,” Cotton said.
Warner agreed.
“Our committee got those briefings, in certain cases, because we had the trust of the intelligence community — had access to even raw intelligence — but it was handled appropriately,” he said. “Our goal is to make sure that we make that intelligence assessment of whether our nation’s security has been compromised.”
Hovering over the ongoing controversies, Warner said, is the “broken system” governing the handling of classified documents.
“We’ve got to fix this for all folks leaving government, for those inside government, on how they deal with documents,” he said.
“This has been kind of a problem that’s been bubbling for some time. It’s now playing out in real time, and our committee is going to take it up and [there is] broad agreement that this needs to be addressed.”
With Post wires
