Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Problem Solvers Caucus agree that there must be an investigation of the classified documents found at President Biden's home.
Repeated searched of the Wilmington, Delaware residence have turned up several batches of classified materials, both from Biden's time as vice president and from his earlier days in the Senate. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. appeared together on "Fox News Sunday" to discuss the matter. Both men were clear on the need to get more information.
"Classified documents can never be taken out of a SCIF, ever," said Fitzpatrick, who is a former FBI agent. "That's number one. Number two, we need equal application of the law. And that's what we're going to make sure that we ensure."
FItzpatrick was referencing Biden's classified information situation as well as the ongoing one involving former President Donald Trump, who was found to have hundreds of pages of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago home. While Biden's home has been subject to a slower search where his own lawyers have been able to participate, Trump's home was raided by the FBI.
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"We're going to do a deep dive into the circumstances surrounding the prior administration and the current administration, both dealing with classified documents, making sure the law is applied equally across the board," Fitzpatrick s aid.
Gottheimer pointed to differences in the Trump and Biden cases, stating that Trump refused "for nearly a year" to give up all of his documents, while "this administration, I believe, has cooperated in a constructive way, with the Justice Department."
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As for Biden, however, Gottheimer agreed that an investigation is necessary.
"The bottom line is this, and Brian is exactly right," Gottheimer said. "We need to have a full cooperation and investigation. We need to get to the bottom of what happened, why and when, to understand everything. And in a broader sense, to make sure that no White House, no administration is ever able to handle classified documents this way and take them out of the White House from a classified setting."
As for what a congressional probe might entail, host Shannon Bream brought up the controversy over whether there are visitor logs for Biden's residence, as Republicans are trying to get a hold of them. Fitzpatrick said he is ready to request these records and other potential evidence.
"There's multiple ways to gather evidence and conduct investigations," Fitzpatrick said, acknowledging that visitors' logs would be helpful. "If that doesn't exist, you go to other forms of evidence. Video surveillance, physical surveillance, witness interviews, there's a whole host of ways to collect evidence."
