WH Pushes Back After Fox News Demands Visitor Log From Biden’s Home — Reveals ‘Like Every President’ He Didn’t Keep One
The White House pushed back days after Fox News demanded the release of visitor’s logs from President Joe Biden’s Delaware residence — which a senior official says do not exist.
The news about classified documents discovered by Biden aides in private storage spaces — including his Wilmington home — has dominated the media since it began to unfold last Monday.
At a White House briefing following Attorney General Merrick Garland announcement of the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur to investigate the issue, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was bombarded with questions about the case. including an aggressive grilling by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy that ended with Doocy demanding to know when visitor’s logs for the Wilmington house would be released:
PETER DOOCY: When will the White House release a log of visitors to the Wilmington house?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: You know, Peter, you’ve asked this question or your colleagues have asked this question before. Let’s not forget what we did here in this White House. We instituted something that the last administration got rid of, which is putting out the White House — putting — making sure that there was a White House log — an extensive White House log — so the American people got to see —
PETER DOOCY: I mean at the Wilmington house where there is —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Again —
PETER DOOCY: — potentially unsecured, classified material.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Again, I am telling you: We did something that the last administration got rid of, which is instituting the White House logs.
Did you ask the last administration why they got rid of the White House logs?
PETER DOOCY: I was the campaign reporter —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Okay, let’s go. Let’s go.
PETER DOOCY: — covering Joe Biden in Wilmington. We don’t know who had access —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, did — Fox did?
On Monday, the White House revealed that no such log exists, and in a statement emailed to Mediaite, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to WH Counsel’s Office Ian Sams pointed out that no modern president has kept such a log.
“No he doesn’t. Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal. But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them,” Sams wrote.
Sams also assailed House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer’s demands in a separate email, writing ” “House Republicans have no credibility. Their demands should be met with skepticism and they should face questions themselves about why they are politicizing this issue and admitting they actually do not care about the underlying classified material. As President Biden has said repeatedly, he takes classified information seriously, which is why he immediately directed his team to ensure the documents were sent back to the government. President Biden is doing the right thing and is cooperating fully with a thorough review, but House Republicans are playing politics in a shamelessly hypocritical attempt to attack President Biden.”
Watch above via The White House.
