President Biden’s former executive assistant from his time as vice president testified before Congress on Tuesday that classified documents were spread out across three different locations in the nation’s capital, then ‘remained accessible’ to Penn Biden center employees when they were transported there, according to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.
Kathy Chung, who joined Biden’s staff in 2012 and stayed in the role through the end of the Obama administration, sat down for a transcribed interview with the committee about classified documents that the president’s attorney say were first found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022. Another tranche of classified documents were later located at the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Rep. Comer, R-Ky., said that Chung ‘provided startling information that undermines the Biden White House’s narrative on the matter.’
‘Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington, D.C. area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center,’ Rep. Comer said in a statement.
‘At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicles to an office location. The boxes were not in a ‘locked closet’ at the Penn Biden Center and remained accessible to Penn Biden employees as well as potentially others with access to the office space. We need to find out who had access to these documents.’
Comer went on to dispute the White House’s timeline, claiming that ‘then-White House Counsel Dana Remus tasked Kathy Chung with retrieving these boxes from the Penn Biden Center as early as May 2022.’
‘This story does not begin in November 2022, as represented by President Biden’s attorney,’ Comer said.
Remus did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, appeared to dispute Comer’s characterization of Chung’s testimony, saying that she wasn’t aware of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center until the president’s attorneys found them there last November.
‘Ms. Chung has cooperated with Committee Republicans every step of the way—providing materials to investigators, voluntarily sitting for an interview, and working in good faith with Congress,’ Rep. Raskin said in a statement.
‘She repeatedly explained that she was unaware that there were alleged classified documents at the Penn Biden Center until November 2022, when the documents were first discovered by counsel for President Biden.’
Chung – who was recommended to the president in 2012 by his son, Hunter Biden – now works as the Pentagon’s deputy director of protocol.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a veteran federal prosecutor, as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Separately, a federal investigation is underway into former President Trump’s handling of classified documents after an FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago home last August. Secret Service agents connected to the former president are expected to testify before a Washington, D.C., grand jury later this week.
Comer said that Republicans will follow up with other ‘persons of interest’ in their investigation, while Raskin accused Republicans of turning a ‘blind eye to Trump’s egregious misconduct’ and creating a ‘mirage of fake evidence for their empty attacks’ on Biden.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday about Chung’s testimony.