What Will Searchers Find at the Joe Biden Beach House? – It’s getting more serious for President Joe Biden when it comes to classified documents.
The FBI began searching his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on February 1. The federal investigators must have probable cause that more secret material could be found.
The Biden team has reportedly given the investigators permission to go through the premises and the search was “planned” with no warrant required.
Biden’s personal attorney said the president had advanced notice and he agreed to cooperate with the latest examination of his second home.
It’s Now Worse for Joe Biden
The drip-drip nature of the scandal is becoming tenuous for the president.
If more documents are found, it could lead into an additional legal headache. The latest search is curious because Biden’s lawyer Bob Bauer previously said that they found no extra classified material at the vacation home at Rehoboth Beach.
This raises the question – How did the FBI get involved if Biden’s lawyers found nothing incriminating in their previous search?
But They Claim to Be Cooperating
Biden’s legal team has revealed that the classified documents were found at Biden’s main residence in Wilmington, Delaware in December and at a think tank office in Washington, DC. The FBI searched that office in mid-November.
Biden’s legal team said he cooperated with the search at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and no warrant was needed.
Joe Biden said he was “surprised” about the matter.
Biden Legal Beagles Believe It Is Just a Misplacement Problem
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as special counsel last month to oversee the Department of Justice investigation. Another Biden lawyer said two weeks ago that any documents found had been “inadvertently misplaced.”
What Is the White House Hiding?
White House aides have been accused of being cagey about the scandal during questions with reporters. Some believe Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has not been completely straightforward and forthcoming about inquiries from journalists. The White House has not shared what was contained in the documents and what level of classification they are.
Fox News wrote that so far “25 to 30” secret documents had been found and turned over to the National Archives and the DOJ.
Time for a Congressional Investigation
Some Republicans smell a deeper scandal and legislators are planning their own investigation into the matter through the House Oversight Committee.
Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said, “nothing that Joe Biden’s done with respect to mishandling these classified documents is normal.”
MTG Says Impeach Now (But She Always Says That)
Most GOP members have so far refrained from demanding an impeachment process regarding the document scandal, but conservative provocateur Marjorie Taylor Greene has. “I’ll echo again: impeach Biden. And that’s what we need to do.”
Although it should be noted that Greene often tries to pass resolutions to impeach Biden for various offenses.
Senate Not Ready to Go Down Impeachment Path
Impeachment is a step that Senate Republicans have previously rejected, but depending on what the FBI finds in the latest search at the beach house, more grumbling could start among Republicans to uncover any wrongdoing that could lead to impeachment. “There has to be a really good reason, obviously, the constitutional reasons and grounds for that. So, we’ll see where it goes,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota said in January.
Democrats Say Don’t Worry
Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said the Biden administration is cooperating with authorities and moving forward in a “responsible fashion” and has “full faith” in the president.
Is There Intent and Obstruction
Lawmakers would likely need evidence that there was criminal intent and obstruction of justice to rise to the level of impeachment. Since the Biden team is cooperating with investigators and claiming that the documents were simply misplaced, impeachment would not be a sure fire path to embark on at this point.
But What Did Biden Really Do in the Senate?
Still, there are unanswered questions – especially about documents found that were U.S. Senate property. As a general rule, Top Secret material is only read by senators in classified rooms at the Capitol Complex. They are not allowed to remove documents. So how did Biden obtain his material from the senate? This would not be an inadvertent action, but could be considered “gross negligence” that the special counsel may pursue further. Gross negligence may not eclipse the bar of illegal activity that are high crimes and misdemeanors, but more classified documents could be found.
Stay tuned to this developing story.
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Author Expertise and Experience: Serving as 19FortyFive’s Defense and National Security Editor, Dr. Brent M. Eastwood is the author of Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare. He is an Emerging Threats expert and former U.S. Army Infantry officer. You can follow him on Twitter @BMEastwood. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Foreign Policy/ International Relations.
