GOP requests intel 'damage assessment' of Biden documents

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee has requested that the US intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden's former institute.

Rep. Mike Turner sent the request Tuesday to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, saying that Biden's retention of the documents put him in “potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act.”

Irrespective of a federal review, the revelation that Biden potentially mishandled classified or presidential records could prove to be a political headache for the president, who called former President Donald Trump's decision to keep hundreds of such records at his private club in Florida “irresponsible. ”

Biden ignored shouted questions about the matter Tuesday during a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Mexico.

Turner's request came a day after the White House confirmed that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings."

The documents were discovered as Biden's personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where the president kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his presidential campaign in 2019, the White House said.

“Those entrusted with access to classified information have a duty and an obligation to protect it,” said Turner in a letter to Haines. “This issue demands a full and thorough review.”

Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for a briefing on the Biden documents.

“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations," he said. "From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that's why we need to be briefed."