Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat from California, has been evasive about whether or not she will support a Republican request for sensitive information from President Joe Biden.
California Democrat Katie Porter demanded answers from the White House on secret materials allegedly retained by President Biden dating back to the Obama administration.
The topic of Porter’s involvement in the House Oversight Committee and the ongoing investigation into Biden’s illegal storage of classified documents at his private residence, inside his garage, and in the office of his think tank came up during an interview with reporters following a town hall event on Tuesday.
So, “I think that we want to obtain answers from the White House,” Porter added.
Not revealing whether or not she will support Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s request for confidential document records, Porter remained mum.
“I haven’t gone through Chairman [James] Comer’s document request line by line to see whether it makes sense, but I do think we need explanations. You heard me say oversight is not a political issue, and classified materials should be kept in secure locations. To exercise effective supervision, you must be ready to take any rule violator to account.”
Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, wrote to White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday, demanding more documents and communications related to the discovery of multiple classified documents from the Obama era in various locations at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
Porter continued by saying that Trump’s “far larger exploitation of sensitive material” was widespread.
I don’t know everything there is to know about President Biden’s secret information,” Porter said. “Unfortunately, due to obstruction, we still don’t have all the evidence we need to draw firm conclusions regarding President Trump’s much larger abuse of classified information. However, we need to be polite when we inquire, and we must insist on truthful responses.”
On Tuesday, reporters sought to quiz Biden about the freshly discovered secret documents from his tenure as president at his Delaware home and the Penn Biden Center, but he disregarded their queries.
After Biden and Mark Rutte met, the two leaders made brief statements, and then reporters started firing out questions at the president. Nobody spoke in response to any of them.
Last week, it happened three times. On Monday, January 9th, Biden first declined to discuss the documents in question.
But on January 10th, after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the president ignored reporters and their questions.