House intel chair says no charges for ‘serial classified document hoarder’ Biden would be ‘devastating’

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that President Biden has been revealed as a “serial classified documents hoarder” and that a lack of charges for the commander-in-chief in connection with the violations would send a “devastating” message.

“CBS has been reporting that special counsel Robert Hur is near the end of his investigation into President Biden and his alleged mishandling of classified info,” network host Margaret Brennan told Turner on “Face the Nation.”

“If there are indeed no charges brought, which is what we are reporting, what do you think the signal will be to the national security world?” she asked.

“Well, this will be certainly devastating, and continuing to be devastating to the Department of Justice and to the Biden Administration with their two-tier system of justice,” Turner responded.

“You know, Biden has been found to be a serial classified document hoarder — over a 10-year period, he’s been taking classified documents, some of the most sensitive that threaten our national security, home without any protection, and certainly, you know, able to, for others to be able to access them. There needs to be consequences.”

Turner said both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s retention of more than 100 classified documents and Biden’s decision to keep sensitive intelligence records for more than a decade “shows the Department of Justice is not pursuing Democrats.” 

“Well, as you know, there is a difference with the case against President Trump, who refused to hand over documents fully and violated the Espionage Act,” Brennan responded. “That’s the charge against him because he didn’t work with the government to hand those over.”

Biden agreed to sit for a voluntary interview with Hur last month, according to the White House.

“As you know Margaret, Biden had these documents for over 10 years,” Turner said. “You can’t hoard documents in your home for a decade-long period, concealing them, taking them home as a senator, Vice President, and then suddenly say, ‘Hey, two weeks while I was president, I cooperated and therefore, it doesn’t count that I spent 10 years as a serial classified document hoarder.’”

Biden, 81, is expected to face criticism but no criminal charges in Hur’s forthcoming report about Biden’s retention of secret material from his time as a vice president and US senator, according to reports last week by CBS News, CNN and the Wall Street Journal.

Former President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social media platform to denounce the decision when the reports broke.

““WOW! FAKE NEWS CNN, THROUGH A LEAK FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, HAS JUST REPORTED THAT NO CHARGES WILL BE FILED IN THE (MUCH BIGGER THAN MINE!!!) CROOKED JOE BIDEN DOCUMENTS CASE. WE ARE LIVING IN A VERY CORRUPT COUNTRY!” he posted Friday.

The report could come out before the end of the year, allowing congressional Republicans to then question Hur about the president keeping more than a dozen classified documents at his Delaware residence — some of which were found stashed next to his 1967 Corvette Stingray — as well as a former office he used in Washington, DC, after he left the Obama White House.

The White House denied requests from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to question current and former officials about their knowledge of the former vice president’s actions regarding the sensitive files.

That included flouting a subpoena for ex-White House counsel Dana Remus.

The decision not to charge Biden was expected. The Justice Department’s longstanding policy is not to charge a sitting president on the grounds that it would “undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

Trump faces 40 counts in connection with his alleged retention of hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office in January 2021.

The 77-year-old ex-president shifted the sensitive materials between “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room” — and lied about doing so to his lawyers and federal authorities who sought them, according to an indictment brought in South Florida by special counsel Jack Smith.

Walt Nauta, a valet to the former president, was also indicted as a co-defendant for purportedly helping to conceal the national security documents.

A superseding indictment from July accused Trump of directing a property manager at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort to delete security camera footage of boxes containing secret papers being moved around.

Trump’s lawyers are scheduled to meet with federal prosecutors and US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the case, on March 1, 2024, to fix a trial date.

Cannon had denied an early request from Trump attorneys to push the trial until after the general election next year.