The FBI didn’t come up with the classified documents from Trump, Biden and Pence last week during a House Intelligence Committee briefing, and lawmakers still don’t know exactly what the documents contain, the committee’s leaders, Representatives Mike Turner and Jim Himes, said. , Sunday .
Turner, R-Ohio, and Himes, D-Conn., appeared together on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where they said there were still unanswered questions about the classified documents discovered in the residences of former president Biden. Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“The FBI is not coming,” Turner said. “They’re not giving us the information. They claim it’s going to affect the outcome of their investigation, which of course can’t because the people targeted by their investigations know what’s in those documents.”
Lawmakers said the commission still doesn’t know what each document’s classification level is or who had access to it. Despite these lingering questions, Turner said the committee is beginning to “build an understanding”.
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Representatives Mike Turner and Jim Himes said they were dissatisfied with the amount of information given to lawmakers during a briefing with the FBI last week about classified documents found in the residences of President Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. (William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images | Joshua Roberts/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“What we know is that it is unbelievable that administration after administration is apparently sloppy and messy in its use of classified documents,” the congressman said. “And that’s one thing we need to address on a two-pronged basis.”
Himes, the commission’s senior member, agreed that both legislators were dissatisfied with the amount of information provided to the commission during the FBI briefing.
“Let’s just say neither of us are satisfied that we have enough information to carry out our primary responsibility of making sure sources and methods are protected,” Himes said.
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While lawmakers said they still couldn’t discuss the details of the briefing, Himes said they were getting “a taste” of what the documents contained and that it is “a very serious issue.”
“These weren’t things that we can clearly say don’t matter,” he said.
When asked if the intelligence community no longer trusts Congress, Turner said it’s “more of a tension between the FBI and Congress,” not the broader intelligence community.
“I think that will come to a head in the next few years,” he said, adding that the FBI is “not special.”
“They have no greater privileges than the president,” Turner continued. “And (the FBI) continues to pretend that they have the privilege of operating without congressional oversight.”
