In Difficult Times Good People gravitate towards Absolute Truth
Top Senate Democrat Blasts Biden Admin Over Classified Doc Scandal: ‘Doesn’t Hold Water’
Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Daily Wire News.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) slammed the Biden administration over President Joe Biden's classified document scandal.
Warner made the remarks during an interview on CBS News's "Face The Nation" with host Margaret Brennan while discussing when the committee would obtain information from the Director of National Intelligence about what was in the classified information at Biden's home and former office.
"Our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those, our job is to make sure there's not an intelligence compromise," Warner said. "And while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've got the special counsel, the notion that we're going to be left in limbo, and we can't do our job, that just cannot stand."
"And every member of the committee who spoke yesterday and I wanted the director to hear this, regardless of party said, we are united in we have to find a way to do our job," he continued. "That means we need these documents, we need that assessment."
Warner later added, "The notion of 'We're not going to give the Oversight Committee the ability to do its job until the special prosecutor somehow says it's OK,' doesn't- doesn't hold water. That's not going to stand with all the members of Congress."
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Let's start on the news of the moment. I know the two of you were briefed by the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Do you have any timeline in terms of when you will get visibility into the documents of classified material that both President Biden and President Trump had in their residences?
SEN. MARK WARNER: Margaret, unfortunately, no. And this committee has had a long bipartisan history of doing its job. And our job here is intelligence oversight. The Justice Department has had the Trump documents about six months, the Biden documents about three months, our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those, our job is to make sure there's not an intelligence compromise.
And while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've got the special counsel, the notion that we're going to be left in limbo, and we can't do our job, that just cannot stand. And every member of the committee who spoke yesterday and I wanted the director to hear this, regardless of party said, we are united in we have to find a way to do our job. That means we need these documents, we need that assessment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the intelligence community would say their hands are tied, because this is an ongoing active Justice Department investigation. So what would meet the level of- of addressing your concerns without compromising that?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Well, I don't know how congressional oversight on the documents, actually knowing what they are, in any way impedes an investigation. These are probably materials we already have access to. We just don't know which ones they are. And it's not about being nosy.
You know, here's the bottom line: if in fact, those documents were very sensitive, materials were sensitive, and they pose a counterintelligence or national security threat to the United States, then the intelligence agencies are tasked with the job of coming up with ways to mitigate that. How can we judge whether their mitigation standards are appropriate, if we don't have material to compare it against, and we can't even make an assessment on whether they've properly risk assessed it?
So we're not interested in the timeline, the tick-tock, the who got what, who did that? Those are criminal justice matters, to the extent that that's what it is. That's not what we're interested in. We deserve and have a right and a duty to review what the materials were so we can have a better understanding of not just, you know, what the agency is doing about it, but whether it's sufficient.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the director even know what the materials were?
SEN. WARNER: Well, we got a bit of vagueness on that because again, I believe you want to make sure the intelligence professionals and not political appointees were making some of that, that makes sense to me. But I would even think that if the- President Trump and President Biden would probably want to have this known if they say there's no there there. Well, you know, there may still be violations on handling.
But we got to tell the American people and our colleagues, because we're the only ones who have access to this information, that there's not been an intelligence compromise. And again, this notion that when there was a special prosecutor appointed, they're not exactly the same circumstances. But remember, this committee spent years doing the investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 election, and there was a special prosecutor and Bob Mueller's investigation going on simultaneously.
SEN. RUBIO: Let me tell you how absurd this is, there isn't a day that goes by that there isn't some media report about what was found where, what some sort of characterization of the material in the press. I just saw one this morning again. So somehow, the only people who are not allowed to know what was in there are congressional oversight committees.
But apparently, the media leaks out of the DOJ are unimpeded in terms of characterizing the nature of some of the materials that were found, plus whatever the individuals involved are telling the media. So it's an untenable situation that I think has to be resolved.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, you know, there's an argument that there's a diminishing value to intelligence over time, some of it's time sensitive. The idea that some of these documents go all the way back to when President Biden was a senator, does that suggest that there's something more than a problem in the executive branch?
SEN. WARNER: Agreed. That's why the notion of 'We're not going to give the Oversight Committee the ability to do its job until the special prosecutor somehow says it's OK,' doesn't- doesn't hold water. That's not going to stand with all the members of Congress-
Go Back
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) slammed the Biden administration over President Joe Biden's classified document scandal.
Warner made the remarks during an interview on CBS News's "Face The Nation" with host Margaret Brennan while discussing when the committee would obtain information from the Director of National Intelligence about what was in the classified information at Biden's home and former office.
"Our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those, our job is to make sure there's not an intelligence compromise," Warner said. "And while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've got the special counsel, the notion that we're going to be left in limbo, and we can't do our job, that just cannot stand."
"And every member of the committee who spoke yesterday and I wanted the director to hear this, regardless of party said, we are united in we have to find a way to do our job," he continued. "That means we need these documents, we need that assessment."
Warner later added, "The notion of 'We're not going to give the Oversight Committee the ability to do its job until the special prosecutor somehow says it's OK,' doesn't- doesn't hold water. That's not going to stand with all the members of Congress."
WATCH:
Since some of the classified materials discovered in President Biden's possession were from his days as a Senator, the argument that Senate Intel Cmte. members can't view what was found until a special prosecutor allows it "doesn't hold water," Sen. @MarkWarner says. pic.twitter.com/kyx6ZYygTS
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 29, 2023
TRANSCRIPT:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Let's start on the news of the moment. I know the two of you were briefed by the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Do you have any timeline in terms of when you will get visibility into the documents of classified material that both President Biden and President Trump had in their residences?
SEN. MARK WARNER: Margaret, unfortunately, no. And this committee has had a long bipartisan history of doing its job. And our job here is intelligence oversight. The Justice Department has had the Trump documents about six months, the Biden documents about three months, our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those, our job is to make sure there's not an intelligence compromise.
And while the Director of National Intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've got the special counsel, the notion that we're going to be left in limbo, and we can't do our job, that just cannot stand. And every member of the committee who spoke yesterday and I wanted the director to hear this, regardless of party said, we are united in we have to find a way to do our job. That means we need these documents, we need that assessment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But the intelligence community would say their hands are tied, because this is an ongoing active Justice Department investigation. So what would meet the level of- of addressing your concerns without compromising that?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Well, I don't know how congressional oversight on the documents, actually knowing what they are, in any way impedes an investigation. These are probably materials we already have access to. We just don't know which ones they are. And it's not about being nosy.
You know, here's the bottom line: if in fact, those documents were very sensitive, materials were sensitive, and they pose a counterintelligence or national security threat to the United States, then the intelligence agencies are tasked with the job of coming up with ways to mitigate that. How can we judge whether their mitigation standards are appropriate, if we don't have material to compare it against, and we can't even make an assessment on whether they've properly risk assessed it?
So we're not interested in the timeline, the tick-tock, the who got what, who did that? Those are criminal justice matters, to the extent that that's what it is. That's not what we're interested in. We deserve and have a right and a duty to review what the materials were so we can have a better understanding of not just, you know, what the agency is doing about it, but whether it's sufficient.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the director even know what the materials were?
SEN. WARNER: Well, we got a bit of vagueness on that because again, I believe you want to make sure the intelligence professionals and not political appointees were making some of that, that makes sense to me. But I would even think that if the- President Trump and President Biden would probably want to have this known if they say there's no there there. Well, you know, there may still be violations on handling.
But we got to tell the American people and our colleagues, because we're the only ones who have access to this information, that there's not been an intelligence compromise. And again, this notion that when there was a special prosecutor appointed, they're not exactly the same circumstances. But remember, this committee spent years doing the investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 election, and there was a special prosecutor and Bob Mueller's investigation going on simultaneously.
SEN. RUBIO: Let me tell you how absurd this is, there isn't a day that goes by that there isn't some media report about what was found where, what some sort of characterization of the material in the press. I just saw one this morning again. So somehow, the only people who are not allowed to know what was in there are congressional oversight committees.
But apparently, the media leaks out of the DOJ are unimpeded in terms of characterizing the nature of some of the materials that were found, plus whatever the individuals involved are telling the media. So it's an untenable situation that I think has to be resolved.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, you know, there's an argument that there's a diminishing value to intelligence over time, some of it's time sensitive. The idea that some of these documents go all the way back to when President Biden was a senator, does that suggest that there's something more than a problem in the executive branch?
SEN. WARNER: Agreed. That's why the notion of 'We're not going to give the Oversight Committee the ability to do its job until the special prosecutor somehow says it's OK,' doesn't- doesn't hold water. That's not going to stand with all the members of Congress-
Home
Contact
About
Service Rates
Privacy Policy
Follow on Facebook
Subscribe to Newsletters
Rss Feed
Keywords
Eastern NC Now & ENC NOW © Copyright 1998-2024 All Rights Reserved.
