Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) said on Sunday that the notion that President Biden did not realize he had classified documents in his possession was “nonsense” because of the classified markings and red cover sheet that accompany such material.
“Every one of these documents, they have a cover sheet that’s red,” Stewart, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan. “It says what the classification is and why it’s classified. Every single page has a classification marking on it … it’s very clear that they’re classified.”
Stewart also said anyone who thinks Biden did not know he had the documents in his possession is wrong, calling the idea “nonsense.”
“Of course he knew that he had them. They’re so obvious,” Stewart said.
Stewart, who is an Air Force veteran, said that he has dealt with classified information for most of his life. But he also stipulated that it was unlikely that the documents found in Biden’s possession would be a threat to national security — the same claim he made about the classified documents found after former President Trump left the White House.
“President Trump had this similar experience,” Stewart said. “Some of the media claimed he has nuclear codes, nuclear secrets. I said at the time I find that extraordinarily unlikely and I think that the same thing would be true of this situation.”
Republicans have pounced on the discovery of Biden’s documents, after Democrats spent months hammering Trump over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said that Congress must probe Biden’s classified documents as the Department of Justice has opened its own investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee announced on Friday that it was launching its first look into the Biden documents.