Representative Jim Jordan, head of the Judiciary Committee, argued on Sunday that federal agencies were handling the classified documents cases of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump differently.
In an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Jordan, R-Ohio, suggested there was a double standard between the discovery of classified documents held by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence. in Florida and the Vice President’s papers found at Biden’s home in Delaware and in an office in Washington.
Jordan accused the FBI and other agencies of being “armed”: “The FBI raided the home of a former president 91 days before an election, took the phone of a sitting congressman and and so on.”
Todd pushed back, saying, “There were nine months between the initial action. … the [National] The archives requested documents before even handing them over to the Department of Justice. The subpoena was issued 60 days before they actually served a subpoena.
“And more importantly, the only time the public found out about it was because Donald Trump told the public about it. It wasn’t some kind of new painted like picture the FBI did this, this and that within hours of each other when it was actually a year and a half since Donald Trump complied with any of the demands of the National Archives,” Todd said. “It’s not some kind of proof that they were armed and that they played politics.”
Jordan said: “They raided Trump’s home. They did not search Biden’s home.
“Because Biden didn’t challenge a subpoena, congressman,” Todd said, adding that Trump had 60 days to comply before the FBI would execute a search warrant.
The National Archives contacted Trump officials shortly after he left office in 2021 to inform them that the agency believed some documents were missing and needed to be returned. After months of back and forth, the former president sent 15 boxes of files, some containing classified documents, from Mar-a-Lago to the archives in January last year. More classified documents were later found after the FBI learned Trump had failed to fully comply with a subpoena.
Jordan’s remarks come on the heels of the new GOP majority in the House. He now also chairs the Select Federal Militarization Subcommittee, which could serve as a one-stop shop to investigate perceived federal wrongdoing against conservatives, including Trump.
Biden has come under scrutiny for documents with classified marks found at his home in Delaware and at an office in Washington. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of Biden’s top allies, said last week: “To think that one of them ended up in boxes stored at a place or another is simply unacceptable.”
Republicans, meanwhile, seized on the revelations, with some saying it shows the FBI unfairly targeted Trump when he raided his Mar-a-Lago home to retrieve classified documents.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Robert Hur, a former federal prosecutor who worked with numerous Republicans throughout his law enforcement career, to oversee the Biden investigation.
Jordan announced this month that the Judiciary Committee had opened an investigation into classified Obama-era documents found at Biden’s home and former Washington office. In a letter to Garland, Jordan demanded all documents and communications between the Justice Department, the FBI and the White House about the discovery, as well as information about Hur’s appointment by Garland.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has asked the White House to release the logs of visitors to Biden’s home in Delaware after other classified Obama administration documents surfaced. were found at the President’s residence in Delaware.
The White House legal counsel’s office said last week that it was reviewing Comer’s recent requests regarding Biden’s handling of classified documents and signaled that it planned to cooperate to some degree.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com