The reason is that the home is private property, according to the White House’s legal adviser and the Secret Service.
“As with every president throughout decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” said a statement from the White House’s legal adviser.
The issue of the classified documents is difficult for Biden, who has directed sharp criticism at former President Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents. Photo: Andrew Harnik / AP / NTB
The Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting current and former presidents and their families, does not itself “keep its own visitor logs because it’s private property,” says spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Republican James Corner, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, demanded access to visitor logs from Biden’s home in Wilmington on Sunday after classified documents were found in the garage and an office there.
Compared to the Trump case
The Republicans are trying to draw parallels between Biden’s document case and that of former President Donald Trump’s handling of such documents.
The former president is under investigation for the handling of classified documents after he leaves the White House in 2021. The FBI found classified documents during a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August.
The Democrats have been trying for years to obtain visitor logs from Mar-a-Lago, but have been unsuccessful. The case is politically sensitive for Biden, who has criticized Trump for the document case.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, said Monday that his party will find out if Biden has turned in all the documents.
– Are there more out there? I think there are a lot of questions people want answered and we want to get all the information we can,” McCarthy said.
Significant difference
Legal experts point to the big difference between Biden’s and Trump’s document problem.
While Biden’s lawyers immediately handed over a small number to the National Archives and promised to cooperate with the investigation, Trump refused to return the documents found on him, and the FBI ended up having to raid his home to retrieve about 13,000 documents, 100 of which were classified.
Justice Minister Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special investigator who will be responsible for the investigation into Biden’s handling of the documents.
A separate special investigator is already working on Trump’s dossier and on his failed attempt to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The White House points out on Monday that Biden reintroduced the tradition of keeping and regularly publishing visitor logs for the White House, after the Trump administration stopped this.
