Growing Standoff Emerges Between Senate Intel And Biden Admin Over Classified Docs

Senators pledged to fight back against the Biden administration’s refusal to grant access. Find classified documents At the residences two presidents.

In a chaotic scene, both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee walked out of a classified briefing Wednesday morning with Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence. They claim they are being blocked from performing their congressional oversight duties to protect national security.

CNN reportsChairman Mark Warner (D-VA), warned “all things will be on the table” To gain access to the documents, the committee was united in its desire to know. “if there’s been any intelligence compromised.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsels to investigate former President Donald Trump’s and President Joe Biden’s handling of documents, which senators said was the justification the intelligence community gave to withhold information from Congress.

“The bottom line is this: They won’t tell us what they have until the special counsel allows them to tell us. That’s an unacceptable position,” Vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Sen. Marco Rubio (R.FL), said Rubio. According to NBC News.

Lawmakers are urging the intelligence community to comply. Do damage assessments since the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year. The sense of urgency has only grown since classified materials were found in recent months at President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence and think tank office in Washington, D.C., dating back to his time as a senator and vice president. Last week, The public has learned The home of Mike Pence, a former Vice President, also contained classified documents.

Biden administration accused of “stonewalling” Senator Tom Cotton (R.A.) indicated that he was ready to raise the issue in Congress “pain” by holding up Biden’s nominees — a strategy he’s used in the past — or withholding budgetary funds, according The Hill.

“I’m prepared to refuse consent to fast-track any nominee from any department or agency and to take every step that I can on every committee on which I serve to impose consequences on the administration until they provide these documents,” Cotton is also a spokesman for the organization. Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Haines has yet not to make a statement publicly about the standoff with senators. However, she spoke on Thursday about preserving democracy. “confidence” in the intelligence community’s work by conducting briefings with Congress on a bipartisan basis.

Haines insists that she tries to emphasize during a speech at LBJ Presidential Library “what we’re doing is for the nation and not for politics,” According to The Washington Examiner. She added: “If the public doesn’t trust us and believes that we are biased politically or otherwise frankly in a way that is illegitimate, then people won’t pay attention to the warnings that we have — it makes us less effective from a national security perspective.”