Republicans on Tuesday demanded to know why the fact President Joe Biden had classified documents from when he was vice president at his think tank wasn't revealed until after the midterm elections with one calling it a 'cover up.'
'When you cover up something before an election,' Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning 'that is probably a point that needs to be highlighted.'
He said the fact the White House didn't say 'a darn thing till after the election looks political me.'
Republican Rep. Don Bacon (left) called it a 'cover up' while Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (right) said 'Maybe the American people should have known about it'
House Republicans are demanding the Justice Department treat Joe Biden like they are treating Donald Trump
How the Biden documents were discovered
NOVEMBER 2: 10 documents were found while Biden's attorneys were packing up the DC think tank office to leave.
The files were said to be in a folder inside a locked closet, in a box with other unclassified documents.
NOVEMBER 8: The midterm elections see Biden and his party perform better than expected.
NOVEMBER 18: The Justice Department announces that Jack Smith, former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, will lead an investigation into Trump's storage of classified documents in his Florida home.
JANUARY 9: The Justice Department announces an investigation has been launched into how the classified documents ended up at Biden's think tank.
Biden says he was unaware there were any classified documents being held there, and his supporters point out that his own lawyers handed them over - noting that Trump's team fought to keep hold of his stash.
The White House announced late Monday that Biden's lawyers discovered 10 classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank on November 2.
That was six days before the midterm election, where Republicans won control of the House but not by the landslide many had predicted.
The delay in announcing the discovery has sparked fury among the GOP and many warned they expect the Justice Department to treat Biden like the agency is treating its probe of former President Donald Trump and the documents he had at Mar-a-Lago.
GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who is set to become the House Oversight Chairman, said he plans to send a letter to the National Archives on Tuesday demanding answers.
Comer said he had questions about why the two presidents were being treated differently.
'I'm wondering is Joe Biden's personal residence gonna be raided by the FBI,' he said on Tuesday.
He said he was asking the National Archives about the documents in the posession of both former presidents.
'But we're just trying to find out exactly what went on at both Mar-a-Lago and the Biden's.'
And Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the incoming House Judiciary chairman, wouldn't say if he would investigate the matter.
He said on Tuesday that his committee was focused on 'what the whistleblowers are saying - talking to us about just the political nature of the Justice Department.'
He pointed out that scope could end up being 'far reaching.'
And he said Trump was a victim of a double standard.
'I think everyone sees the double standard there, you know, plus, plus the country got to know about what happened 91 days before the election with President Trump,' he noted. 'This happened a week before the election. We didn't know about it before.'
Democrats, meanwhile, were careful in their response.
'It's a concern whenever classified documents are somewhere they shouldn't be. But we see no evidence of deliberate intent, or obstruction of justice, as we see in the case of Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago,' said Rep. Adam Schiff, who was on many of the panels investigating Trump.
Attorney General Merrick Garland's Justice Department is investigating the matter and deciding whether to appoint a special counsel, like the one investigating Trump's hoarding of sensitive documents.
Garland has asked the US attorney in Chicago to review the 10 files discovered by Biden's personal attorneys at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
Trump was among the many Republicans demanding answers and, on Tuesday, said it was time for Biden to have a special counsel too.
The former president on Monday pointed out that his own home was raided by the FBI for having classified documents stored there.
'When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,' he wrote on social media.
A special counsel would give the White House a certain type of political cover, allowing officials to refuse Republican requests for an investigation by saying the Justice Department was investigating.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday night expressed disbelief at the timing of the discovery.
'Oh really? They just now found them? After all these years?' he said to reporters on Capitol Hill.
'President Trump had never been in office before and had just left, came out. Here's an individual [who] spent his last 40 years in office and still had this from the vice president.'
'It just shows that they were trying to be political to President Trump,' he added.
Biden was in Mexico City on Monday for a meeting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and refused to answer shouted questions as to how the documents ended up inside the offices.
As the press in Mexico City was being ushered out of the meeting room, one reporter yelled out: 'Mr President, any response to the discovery of classified documents?'
The president did not respond.
Joe Biden looks down at his briefing files on Monday in Mexico City, as a reporter yells a question about the classified documents found in the Washington DC offices of his think tank. Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, looks up as the press pack is ushered out
The classified materials included some top-secret files with the 'sensitive compartmented information' designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.
The White House special counsel said in a statement on Monday: 'The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden admin records, including a small number of documents with classified markings.'
It is unclear what the classified documents contain, but their discovery follows the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort last year and comes as Republicans begin their investigations into the Biden family.
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