‘I Don’t Know Anything About That!’ White House Counsel Spox Denies Biden Admin Silenced National Archives on Docs
Ian Sams, the spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, addressed reporters on Wednesday after news broke that the FBI searched President Joe Biden’s Rehoboth, Deleware beach home and found no classified documents at the residence.
“Just to be very clear. Has the FBI conducted any searches of any other locations associated with the president that you or the White House is aware of?” a reporter asked Sams.
“Look, I think we’re providing information as this goes on and answering questions about the search activities as they’ve been happening,” Sams replied as the reporter pushed for a yes or no answer.
“I don’t want to speak too much to the DOJ’s practices in an ongoing investigation. I can say, you know, that that we have cooperated fully,” Sams continued, adding:
The president’s personal attorneys have provided information to DOJ. We’ve addressed openly and directly the searches that were conducted first at the president’s Wilmington residence and then today at the Rehoboth residence. You saw in the statement that was released by the president’s personal attorney, for example, that no documents with classified markings were found in Rehoboth today.
And so, you know, we’re going to continue to try to provide information as this investigation goes on and ensure that you guys have the ability to share with the American people sort of the information that that that is important for them to see as the president’s cooperating with this investigation. So I don’t so I want to be very careful to respect the integrity of that investigation, not speak too much to the Justice Department’s decision making and their activities. But as it’s appropriate, like we did today, if we have information to share about activities that have been conducted, we will do that.
“But just to be very clear about this is…” the reporter tried to follow up.
“Go ahead,” Sams said to a different reporter.
“I’ll ask a separate question. Then you can follow up on that. Did anyone at the White House at any point tell the National Archives in any form that they could not release a press release about the discovery of classified documents?” the off-camera reporter asked.
“What do you, what’s that in reference to?” Sams asked for clarity.
“There is reporting that came from the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who says that in his conversations with the National Archives, they communicated that they were told the archives was told it could not release a press release at whatever point it was about the discovery of classified documents and did anyone at the White House told them not to that?” the reporter replied.
“Yeah, I don’t know anything about that. If that’s actually what he said, it’s probably better to ask the archives if that’s actually what was said and try to understand a little bit more what he meant,” Sams replied.
Notably, Comer’s claim is part of a larger accusation that the Biden administration worked to prevent the president’s retention of classified documents from becoming public until after the midterm elections.
After some cross-talk the first reporter pushed again, “Can you just, can say, can you, because it was yes or no?”
“I gave an answer to that question,” Sams shot back, having not answered the question.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News
