Bipartisan senators on the Intelligence Committee are united in their frustration about the lack of transparency surrounding classified documents recovered from the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence, prompting lawmakers to consider everything from subpoenas to funding cuts to gain access.
Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) and ranking member Marco Rubio (R-FL) have pressed the administration for more information about the classified documents found — but with little success. The Department of Justice said Monday it is working to determine how best to brief the panel on potential national security risks posed by the improper possession of classified materials, but senators say they aren’t satisfied with that response.
“I need to talk with Chairman Warner and our members about what our next steps should be,” Rubio told the Washington Examiner. “The ideal world is one in which the intelligence agencies recognize that we have oversight over those committees and they are the owners of that material. There really is no rational reason not to provide us insight into what those materials were. That’s the ideal outcome. I’m not sure that’s the one we will get.”
If the intelligence agencies continue to block access to the documents, Rubio said, “We’ll take measures to ensure that they understand our displeasure.” The Florida Republican and Virginia Democrat first asked to be briefed by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in August after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. Department officials initially intended to brief lawmakers in September, but sources tell the Washington Examiner that scheduling conflicts blocked that from happening.
RUBIO KNOCKS DOJ FOR SHIELDING INFORMATION ON CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FROM CONGRESS
Members of the panel continue to weigh all their options and have even threatened to take action to compel the administration to cooperate, which could include issuing subpoenas, withholding funding, or blocking Biden’s nominees until Congress is allowed to review the documents. Senators on both sides of the aisle are warning DOJ leadership that they will utilize whatever leverage they have.
“If they cooperate with us, that won’t be necessary. But, as you know, there are limited tools that senators have to get the executive branch’s attention, and that’s one of them, along with appropriations. Hopefully, we will be able to work something out,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a senior member of the panel.
Cornyn dangled the possibility of cutting funding for specific programs like the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.
“That remains available, but there’s not a whole lot else we can do to get their attention if they are not willing to negotiate,” he said.
Department of Justice officials said they are working to comply with congressional oversight but contend the agency has a long-standing policy of withholding materials from active investigations. However, lawmakers on the panel said they don’t accept that response, especially after they were given access to sensitive information during the investigation of links between Trump and Russia conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller at the Justice Department.
“That demonstrates that we can get access to intelligence without jeopardizing the investigation, which is the stated reason why they are concerned,” Cornyn said. “We don’t really care about the investigation. We want the documents, we want to be able to assess the intelligence risks, and that’s what we are focused on.”
Some members have hinted that the White House is to blame for the standstill.
“It’s not so much the DOJ. It’s a matter of the executive branch needs to literally come clean,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD). “They need to come clean in terms of what actually happened and what was in the documents and who might have seen them.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the panel, said he won’t accept the “stonewalling” from the DOJ and reiterated the panel is not seeking any information that would compromise ongoing criminal investigations.
“I’m one of the longer-serving members of the committee, someone who has certainly been a privacy hawk, a bigger privacy hawk around here, and it’s not acceptable to me to say that the committee cannot do its job,” Wyden said to reporters following a classified briefing on Tuesday afternoon.
Wyden said senators have not been given any time frame as to when they’ll be briefed or will receive a damage assessment. He reiterated that his patience is wearing thin and that his duties to conduct oversight don’t change even when a member of his own party is in the White House.
“Nobody is above the law. You know me well enough to know I’ve done vigorous oversight when it’s been a Democratic president or a Republican president. I’m a Democrat, but I’m red, white, and blue,” he said.
Other Democrats on the committee also expressed their frustration.
“It’s important to see those documents. My sense is there is a lot of unity among our members,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) as he left the classified briefing on Tuesday.
Senators on the panel, controlled by Democrats, said it will be impossible to fix the current classification system if they are left in the dark.
“I think it is important for us to know the nature of the documents,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS). “It helps us to determine whether or not we’re overclassifying things. But, more importantly, it gives us the chance to see what problems have potentially been created, what breaches of security have occurred, and whether the intelligence community is responding appropriately.”
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urged the Department of Justice to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s call for more details about the classified documents.
“I think the bipartisan request of Chairman Warner and Vice Chairman Rubio is entirely reasonable,” McConnell said during a Tuesday press conference, adding that the information “will not interfere with these ongoing criminal investigations.”
“I hope the administration will come up with a better answer than no, which is apparently [what] the chairman and vice chairman were told recently,” he said. “Their request to find out exactly what kind of documents were in improper custody seems to be squarely within their oversight mission on the Intel Committee.”
