White House: Visitor Logs for Biden Home Don't Exist

UPDATE Jan 16, 2023 4:04 PM CST

House Republicans are demanding visitor logs from President Biden's Delaware home, but the White House says it isn't going to provide them because they don't exist. "Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal," the White House counsel's office said in a statement Monday, per Reuters. "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." Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency provides security for Biden's Wilmington home, where classified records from his time as vice president were found, but it doesn't keep records on visitors, CNN reports.

Jan 15, 2023 3:25 PM CST

House Republicans want the White House to turn over all documents related to the search for out-of-place classified documents, including the visitor logs from President Biden's house in Wilmington, Delaware—where some of the papers were found. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday, Axios reports. The discovery of the documents in Biden's house, Comer wrote, raises questions "about who may have reviewed or had access to classified information." He also asked for the names of the Biden aides who conducted searches and the dates they took place, per the Wall Street Journal.

Although he acknowledged in an interview on CNN's State of the Union that he doesn't know whether any crime was committed, per the AP, Comer called Biden's home "essentially a crime scene." He said he was troubled that Biden's personal attorneys, who don't have security clearances, were rooting through the house in their search. White House officials issued no comment Sunday on the matter. The publication of visitor logs for the White House was resumed after former President Donald Trump left office. But logs for Biden's houses are not released, per the Journal.

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The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee said Sunday he supports the investigation in the Biden case, as well as the one into Trump's handling of classified documents. Stressing that the cases have major differences, Rep. Jamie Raskin told CNN, "We should keep a sense of proportion and measure about what we're talking about." Asked Sunday if his committee would also investigate Trump, Comer said, "I don't feel like we need to spend a whole lot of time investigating President Trump, because the Democrats have done that for the past six years." (More President Biden stories.)