Warner says DOJ keeping Biden classified documents from Congress ‘does not pass the smell test’

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said that a move by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to keep information regarding classified documents mishandled by President Biden and former President Trump from lawmakers “does not pass the smell test.”

“We need more information about these documents,” the Senate Intelligence Committee chair said in an interview with CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “And more importantly, we need to make sure what the intel community has done to mitigate the harm.”

The mishandling of classified information by both Biden and Trump is under separate federal investigations. Warner and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chairman of the Intelligence panel, have pressed the Biden administration to provide lawmakers with more information about the documents’ contents and what has been done to lessen any harm posed by their mishandling.

Warner and a bipartisan group of top lawmakers in the House and Senate received a classified briefing on the documents late last month, but the Virginia Democrat said at the time that the meeting “left much to be desired.”

Officials have argued that divulging information about the documents could hinder the investigations into the documents, an argument that Warner does not buy.

“The administration’s position does not pass the smell test,” Warner said on CBS. “We’ve got a job not to go into the legal ramifications, but to make sure that the intelligence community has done what’s right.”

Warner and Rubio have pressured the Biden administration to allow lawmakers access to the materials, sending a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last month urging “immediate compliance” with a request to see the documents seized from Biden and Trump.