The House Oversight Committee has scheduled an interview with President Joe Biden’s former executive assistant next month as part of its investigation into classified documents found in Biden’s home and office.
The Republican-led panel will meet with Kathy Chung on April 4, a committee spokesperson said Thursday. A source familiar with the matter said Chung has scheduled an interview with the panel.
Chung’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting, which was first reported by CNN.
Chung, who’s now deputy director of protocol for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, was Biden’s executive assistant while he was vice president and helped pack up the contents of his office in January 2017 during the transition.
She is also among the former aides who have already been interviewed by federal law enforcement officials reviewing how classified documents ended up in Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and a Washington, D.C., office, sources have previously told NBC News.
The House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., launched its investigation after it was revealed in January that a “small number” of classified documents had been found in a closet at Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington in November of last year, just days before the midterm elections.
Other Obama-era documents were later discovered in Biden’s Delaware home, in addition to other documents dating back to his time in the Senate.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in January named a special counsel to “investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter.”
After Garland appointed Robert Hur as special counsel, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said, “We have cooperated closely with the Justice Department throughout its review, and we will continue that cooperation with the Special Counsel. We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake.”
The White House Counsel’s office said in January it was reviewing Comer’s requests for information “with the goal of seeking to accommodate legitimate oversight interests within the Committee’s jurisdiction while also respecting the separation of powers and the constitutional and statutory obligations of the Executive Branch generally and the White House in particular.”
The Biden document discoveries came after the FBI executed a search warrant of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home in August. The search came after federal investigators said they obtained information that Trump had failed to turn over presidential documents, including scores with classified markings, that they had subpoenaed.
A bipartisan group of high-ranking lawmakers received an initial briefing last month from the intelligence community about the documents found on the Biden and Trump properties, as well as classified documents that were found in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Vice Chair Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the Feb. 28 briefing “left much to be desired.”
Comer was not one of the lawmakers briefed by administration officials that day.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
