FBI Searched the Penn Biden Center in November, White House Misled the Public

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Joe Biden’s illegal possession of classified documents is the presidential scandal that just won’t go away. Despite the White House’s best efforts to cover up what happened, news continues to leak out drip by drip, and the latest revelation is a bombshell.

According to CBS News, the FBI conducted a previously undisclosed search of the Penn Biden Center back in November. That would be the office where Biden’s classified documents problem started. No one at the White House or the DOJ bothered to mention that until this leak.

The FBI searched the Penn Biden Center offices in mid-November, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, after lawyers for President Biden had found about 10 documents marked classified there on Nov. 2. The material originated from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president.

It is not clear whether FBI personnel found any additional classified or presidential material during the mid-November sweep.

This marks at least the second time the White House has purposely misled the public about the severity of the situation. Press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre told the press corps on January 12th that the searches of Biden’s properties had been completed. Just two days later, five more documents were revealed to have been found. Eventually, the FBI would search Biden’s Delaware home, finding even more documents while the administration once again bragged about its supposed cooperation and transparency.

In this latest instance, we have an FBI search that took place all the way back in November and no one at the White House disclosed it. Not even as reporters pushed for more information about what searches had already transpired.

The reason for the obfuscation is obvious. The White House wanted to cover this up, and they wanted to make the public believe everything going on was routine. An FBI search doesn’t qualify as routine so they kept its existence hidden. I suppose Jean-Pierre and the rest of the comms team thought it wouldn’t leak out, but they thought wrong.

I’d also be remiss to not mention the double standard at the DOJ. Once again, we find out something important months after the fact. Contrast that with the raid on Mar-a-Lago, which was leaked immediately, complete with pictures of documents positioned on a closet floor. Clearly, DOJ officials are far more tight-lipped when it comes to Democrat politicians. Given that, the sources that leaked this better watch their backs because you know the administration is coming for them.

Latest Biden Documents Revelation Exposes the Duplicity in the Press

Brad Slager reporting for RedState

The media have basically laid a trap for themselves regarding the Biden documents, and now they have been ensnared.

The news that came out yesterday regarding Biden and the classified documents issue that continues to metastasize is becoming more problematic for the press. The cabal of journalists who spent six months telling us how Trump’s document seizure had almost rendered our democracy has been in a knot for weeks attempting to downplay or dismiss Jose Biden’s own culpability. Now, one of the questions many looking at the press have been asking – namely, when is the FBI going in to retrieve sensitive data – has been answered. It is a far from satisfying explanation.

As Bonchie showed us earlier, we’ve now learned that there have already been visits from the Feds, to both the Biden Center in Pittsburgh, as well as the President’s private residence. This presents a problem for the administration, as they have been massaging this story, and it has routinely blown back in their faces with the grace of a Daffy Duck musket. Like Bonchie stated, this makes the administration look like dolts after touting “its supposed cooperation and transparency.” 

But this is looking just as bad for the press corps. How is it that we are only learning today about these visits from the Feds? They went to the Penn Biden Center in early November, on the 9th. (A full week after the discovery on the 2nd, and conveniently the day after the midterms.) How are we only today learning about these visits from law authorities? Official White House statements aside, where are all of the contacts in the press with Justice officials?

Look back on the day the Feds went into Trump’s Florida residence and we see a stark difference in coverage. Somehow, the media was well aware of the raid, as we had same-day reporting, including Sikorsky shots of the compound. Immediate speculation about what was behind the raid was delivered. Now…we only learned of the presence of Biden’s documents weeks after they were discovered, and the visits to two locations by the Feds emerges well after taking place — with one having been conducted months ago.

Note all the activities that somehow managed to elide the freeflow information channels between the press corps and Justice contacts last November.

The search came after Mr. Biden’s lawyers agreed to let agents search his former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. It couldn’t be determined whether investigators found any additional items in the search. 

Two locations in two states and no journalists managed to be tipped off. Then we have the contrast in coverage of the contents of those documents. Right away, we heard what the Feds and the National Archives might have been looking for in Florida, and in the ensuing days, a number of leaks about what was discovered to be in Trump’s possession came out. But today? It cannot be determined what Biden had at Car-A-Lago, even months later.

This follows the stark incurious position the press has taken about the Biden documents. Note the explanation given and how the press has been content to let these statements stand.

Neither the White House nor the Justice Department mentioned the November office search even as officials offered timelines of the discoveries and Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to examine why and how the documents followed Mr. Biden. Mr. Garland said the FBI on Nov. 9 began assessing whether classified material had been mishandled in violation of federal law.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

This now leads to a major challenge for the media. Their demonstrated apathy regarding the Biden discovery means they have completely neutered all the claims made surrounding Trump’s document story, leaving them in a quandary. Either the Trump docs will be dropped as inconsequential, or the need to keep hounding that issue will lead to equal coverage on the Biden side.

That second plotline will lead to great challenges. If they are compelled to investigate the Biden angle then it will involve the White House covering up the details for months. Some in the press will, of course, be reticent to do so, but if the Democrat Party sees fit to have Biden shunted ahead of the 2024 election, this may be the news line used. 

The press could end up becoming dupes for the Democrats, all because they initially tried to agree to protect the party.