Biden administration stonewalls Congress on nearly all fronts

Three months into the new Congress the House Republicans have kept their promise to investigate the wide variety of Biden administration actions over the past two years.

However, officials from the Biden administration refuse to cooperate so far on almost every front.

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It is far from the transparency and openness that President Joe Biden promised when he took office.

GOP lawmakers are now facing the increasing likelihood of a long-running fight to get basic answers.

Since January, more than half a dozen House committees have sent numerous requests to federal agencies. These requests range from Hunter Biden’s business dealings to expedited COVID-19 booster approval.

Even several Democratic-controlled Senate committees have pushed the Biden administration for information — and, in some cases, expressed frustration with the result.

Some letters have been met with silence by officials from the Biden administration.

Other times, they offered a superficial response and did not address the substance of the request.

On Jan. 10, the House Oversight Committee requested that the White House counsel provide details about the discovery and subsequent disclosures of classified documents within Joe Biden’s private office. This includes the documents themselves and a list listing all authorized persons to enter that office. It also included all communications between White House and National Archives and Records Administration regarding the matter.

Stuart Delery, White House counsel, replied with a letter stating that his office would not review the matter. “legitimate oversight interests” They may also provide additional details in the near future. A person familiar with the matter said that the White House has not provided additional documents.

Responding to House Oversight Committee’s requests for information on its handling of Trump and Biden classified documents cases, the National Archives stated it could not answer most congressional document requests unless it had signed-off from Justice Department. The more powerful agency effectively has a veto over its cooperation.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee blasted the State Department’s failure to provide any information at all about the administration’s disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan in 2021.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R, Texas) stated in an earlier letter to the State Department that his committee has not received any records for many weeks.

“The paucity of documents produced by the State Department to date comes despite the Committee having repeatedly requested that the Department begin identifying responsive documents and information following the November 2022 election,” McCaul wrote.

McCaul stated that the only thing the State Department gave McCaul was a copy and redacted pages from a public document.

“Most of the remaining pages included extensive redactions that severely limit their usability and value. Notably, many of the redactions appear to cover the prepared answers from the question-and-answer portion of talking points documents,” McCaul pointed out. “That is to say, the Department redacted information from Congress that it was prepared to share with the public at the time the documents were generated.”

Federal officials have only in limited instances cooperated with Republicans. The Biden administration has placed restrictions on the extent of cooperation that can be achieved, even in these limited circumstances.

The House Oversight Committee revealed on Thursday that its investigators found that the Biden family received over $1million in payments related to a Chinese company. After months of resistance, the Treasury Department finally gave in to the panel’s request to review financial documents known as suspicious activity reports related to the Bidens.

It also came after the committee requested a hearing, or at most a closed-door interview with a Treasury Department official, regarding the financial transactions.

“After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” House Oversight chairman James Comer (R.KY), stated this week in a release. “It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request.”

“For over 20 years, Congress had access to these reports but the Biden Administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight,” Comer added.

The Oversight Committee was established only in an “in camera” Review meant that staff and lawmakers were not allowed to take copies of the documents out of the room where they were allowed to see them.

In January, the National Archives permitted its general counsel to take part in a transcripted interview with Oversight Committee. But Gary Stern, the lawyer, was not allowed to answer many questions related to the core of the committee’s inquiry.

Oversight Republicans would like to know why the National Archives responded more aggressively to Trump’s classified document situation than it did to the Biden case.

In January, Stern informed the Oversight Committee that the archives had prepared a public statement following the revelations about Joe Biden’s mishandling classified documents. However, the statement was not published.

Stern claimed that someone from his agency told the National Archives not publish the statement. He declined to identify who.

“According to the [Justice Department] guidance, I’m not supposed to talk about the, you know, content of our communications with other parties,” Stern said this according to an excerpt from the transcript Comer sent in a letter earlier this year.

The Biden administration has generally tried to avoid any investigation at different stages of progress regarding COVID-19’s origins, alleged misconduct at FBI and National Institutes of Health and communications between the federal government, major social media companies, and other investigations.

Some House Republicans already have embraced a more confrontational approach.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OH, subpoenaed the Justice Department and FBI leaders last month, after months of silence from administrators over the treatment of parents who protested during school board meetings beginning in 2021.

Jordan stated that Republicans started asking for information about parents’ treatment when they were in the House minority; his committee was subpoenaed when Republicans gained a House majority in 2022’s midterm elections.

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The Democratic Senate has also been frustrated by the Biden government’s refusal of cooperation.

Both Republican and Democratic senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee complained that the intelligence community continues blocking access to classified documents found at Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump’s private homes, despite repeated attempts by the committee to reach a deal with the Biden government.