Ilhan Omar Claims Republicans ‘Aren’t Really Interested in Upholding the Law’ amid Biden Documents Investigation

Representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) on Saturday claimed Republicans are investigating President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents from his time as vice president as part of a “political game” and not because they care about following security protocols.

“What I find interesting is that Republicans who have defended [former president] Trump after he literally stole classified documents, refused to turn them over, lied about having them, made up some story about how he declassified them, had to have his house raided in order for those documents to be found, are now only interested in investigating Biden, who has cooperated, whose own staff and former staff have themselves turned these documents in,” the progressive Squad member told MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend.  

“You have to understand, Republicans aren’t really interested in upholding the law, in following security protocols. What they’re interested in is playing a political game in now only wanting to investigate Biden,” Omar added.  

A set of classified records from Biden’s time as vice president were first recovered by Biden’s lawyers on November 2 at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank that served as Biden’s private office from 2017 to 2019, after his time as vice president came to an end.

The White House Counsel’s office then searched Biden’s homes in Delaware this week and discovered “a small number of additional Obama-Biden administration records with classified markings,” the vast majority of which were found in a storage space in Biden’s Wilmington garage, White House lawyers said earlier this week.

Special Counsel Richard Sauber then said Saturday that he discovered five additional pages with classified markings at the president’s Wilmington, Del., on Thursday. Sauber said after Biden’s personal attorneys discovered one classified document at Biden’s home on Wednesday, they ended their search because they did not have the appropriate security clearances to view the materials.

“Because I have a security clearance, I went to Wilmington Thursday evening to facilitate providing the document the President’s personal counsel found on Wednesday to the Justice Department,” Sauber said. “While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel on Thursday to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.

“I’m glad that there is a special prosecutor that’s been appointed to investigate this… because any time there is a deviance in regard to security protocols, that should be taken serious, it should be investigated,” Omar said Saturday.

Meanwhile, The FBI raided Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in August as part of an investigation into the former president for his alleged removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violation of the Espionage Act, according to the search warrant for Trump’s home.

Republicans have questioned why the Biden investigation has seemingly differed from the investigation into Trump.

“We would never have known about the possession of the classified documents were it not for investigative reporting by CBS that somehow got a leak to determine that this had happened prior to the election,” House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) told CNN. “So the administration hasn’t been transparent about what’s going on with President Biden’s possession of classified documents. And we just want equal treatment here with respect to how both former President (Donald) Trump and current President Biden are being treated with the document issue.”