The White House counsel’s office said Monday that there were no visitors logs to track guests entering and exiting President Biden’s private home in Delaware.
“Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the counsel’s office said in a statement. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”
The statement followed House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) saying on Sunday that he’d asked White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain for the visitor logs for Biden’s residence where classified documents were found.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, further said that agency does not independently maintain visitor logs for Biden’s Delaware home.
Comer’s request to search any such logs followed an announcement over the weekend that the White House had discovered five additional pages of classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home, bringing the total–between his home and his think tank the Penn-Biden Center–to roughly 20.
While it’s unclear how the documents landed in Biden’s possession, it may be that they were mistakenly taken in 2017 when Biden left the White House at the end of his term as Vice President. The first documents were discovered at the Penn-Biden Center on November 2, just before the midterms elections. However, the matter only became public this month due to news reports.
The White House counsel’s office said it would be referring all future questions to the special counsel’s office. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to handle the investigation into Biden’s misplacement of classified documents.
On Thursday, Biden told reporters, “I take classified documents and classified materials seriously [and] we’re cooperating, fully cooperated with the Justice Department review.”
