No visitor logs for Biden's home, says White House - Dispatch Weekly

January 17, 2023 - Reading time: 4 minutes

There aren’t any visitor logs for President Joe Biden’s private residence, according to the White House.

After secret documents were found in his Delaware home, Republicans ​asked to view the logs.

The White House Counsel’s office stated on Monday that keeping track of who visits the ​President​’​s private residences is not customary procedure.

At least 20 documents have been discovered at Mr. Biden’s residence and a Washington DC office that he utilised.

The records are from his time serving as vice president during the Obama presidency. According to CBS News, some of them were classified as “Top Secret,” the highest level possible.

It was reported earlier this month that secret documents had been discovered in a private office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington. Following that, it was revealed that a second stash had been found at Mr. Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Five more pages of classified information were found on Thursday, the White House reported over the weekend. At the end of a presidency, all White House records are required by law to be turned over to the National Archives.

The White House has stated that it is fully cooperating and that the materials were “accidentally misplaced.”

Republicans in Congress have been requesting that the White House make Mr. Biden’s home visitor logs public, but up until Monday, the White House would not confirm whether or not it will do so.

James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Ron Klain, the chief of staff at the White House, over the weekend, stating that “President Biden’s mishandling of sensitive data raises the issue of whether he has jeopardised our national security.”

“The American people won’t know who had access to these highly secret data without a list of persons who have visited his apartment.”

However, the White House counsel’s office said that there are no such visitor logs in a statement released on Monday.

According to Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House counsel, “like every ​P​resident across decades of modern history, (Mr. Biden’s) personal house is personal.”

The Secret Service has previously stated that it does not keep a record of the private houses of ​P​residents. When the FBI discovered hundreds of sensitive documents at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property last year, it claimed in a court filing from 2017 that no visitor records were kept there.

However, the organisation is always there and screens guests before they enter Mr. Biden’s properties in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach.

A special prosecutor is looking at how Mr. Biden handled the files. The House Oversight Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, has said that it will conduct its own inquiry.

A visitors’ record is made available to the public on the White House website​, a ​practi​c​e ​that ​was instituted under the Obama administration.

It was put on hold under the Trump administration and resumed with Mr. Biden in charge.​​

DW Staff

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