WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials are offering to brief congressional leaders on the investigation into classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Florida home as well as at President Joe Biden’s home and former private office, people familiar with the matter said. on Sunday.
A briefing could come as soon as this week. But that may not satisfy demands from lawmakers who want to review documents taken not only from Mar-a-Lago but also from locations owned by Biden and the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
Six months after federal agents first conducted an unprecedented search of the former president’s home for classified documents, the White House is facing bipartisan pressure to share what it found with lawmakers who say they are concerned about potential damage to national security and intelligence sources. A separate special counsel is investigating documents found in the possession of Trump and Biden.
Officials declined to answer public or private questions about what they found, citing an ongoing criminal investigation and a separate “risk assessment” of the damage to intelligence sources.
Rep. Mike Turner, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Friday that the administration told him it would be briefed on the document this week.
“This administration needs to understand that we have an issue of national security importance,” Turner (R-Ohio) said. He also asked the White House to brief him on the Chinese balloon shot down on Saturday.
“What’s interesting is that when this balloon became public, I didn’t get any information from the administration that I would get a briefing on this balloon, but they have to rush to Congress now to talk to us about the Donald Trump document.” he said, adding to the discussion about Biden and Pence’s notes are expected to be included.
Three people familiar with the matter confirmed the congressional briefing was offered to the “Gang of Eight” – the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and the two intelligence committees. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.
Any briefing is not expected to include direct access to seized documents, the people said.
Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested the access in a letter last week to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the National Director. Intelligence Avril Haines.
The director of the national intelligence office and the Justice Department both declined to comment on Sunday.
The Justice Department said about 300 classified documents, including those at the top-secret level, had been recovered from Mar-a-Lago after being taken there after Trump left the White House. Last August, FBI agents executed a search warrant on the property after developing evidence that led them to believe that Trump and his deputy had not returned all of the classified files.
The material taken at that time included approximately 13,000 government documents, including about 100 bearing classification marks. Some of the material is so sensitive that Justice Department prosecutors and FBI counterintelligence investigators need additional security clearance to review it.
The special counsel, Jack Smith, is investigating whether to prosecute Trump or anyone associated with the documents. Prosecutors have announced that they are investigating possible violations of several criminal laws, including the retention of national defense information and obstruction. A grand jury in Washington has heard evidence and federal prosecutors have interviewed several Trump associates. It is unclear how long the investigation will take.
Trump has claimed that the material is classified and that he has the power to do so just by thinking about it, although his lawyers have not repeated that claim. He tried to have an independent arbitrator conduct an outside review of the documents, although a federal appeals court late last year stopped that work and said the Trump team was not entitled to such an assessment.
Biden’s lawyers said they contacted authorities after finding “a small number of classified documents” on November 2, 2022, in a locked cabinet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The documents were found when Biden’s lawyers cleaned out the office.
A second set of documents – again described by Biden’s lawyers as “a small number” – was found in a storage room in Biden’s garage near Wilmington, Delaware, along with six pages that were in Biden’s personal library at his home.
FBI agents on January 20 found six additional items containing classified documents and also took some of Biden’s handwritten notes, according to Biden’s attorney Bob Bauer. The FBI later searched Biden’s vacation home in Delaware but found no classified documents, Bauer said.
AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.