Former acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker told Newsmax Tuesday that he thinks the Department of Justice is "stonewalling" the House Judiciary Committee over the Biden docs investigation and that the public spat will need to be "worked out."
"This is a process called accommodation, and the balance in this whole situation is that Congress has a legitimate legislative purpose, and that is to work on legislation that they can craft to make sure that future administrations don't have presidents and vice presidents go home with classified information," Whitaker said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
"This is a very legitimate request by the Congress," he continued. "Obviously it would be protected as classified, if it's still classified, and put into a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility] where it could be reviewed, but I think DOJ is stonewalling, and they're going to have to work this out. Ultimately, if I was in the Congress, I think I'd start issuing some subpoenas."
On Monday, the Justice Department refused to disclose further details to the House Judiciary Committee about the special counsel investigation into the mishandling of classified materials discovered at President Joe Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home and his former office.
Doing so would potentially damage the case, the DOJ claims.
Chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the House committee requested all documents and communications related to the probe, including correspondence involving Biden's attorneys and those related to the appointment of a special counsel.
"This is one of the beauties of our Constitution," Whitaker said. "Our Founding Fathers gave no branch more power than the others and so, while the DOJ can say we have an active investigation, we're not going to share our investigative file, that's a very small subset of information."
"Because of the equally legitimate congressional power of, not only funding the government but in creating legislation to address this issue, if there's gaps in what has previously been available, then that is an equally legitimate issue, and just because DOJ found this information first, it's got to be worked out," he said.
When asked about House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer's remarks at the National Press Club, questioning why China is suddenly spending so much money on Joe Biden, Whitaker said the congressional probe is "the best vehicle to get that answer."
"I mean, there's been a lot of smoke around the China-Biden connection," he said. "Obviously the funding of the University of Pennsylvania and the Biden Center is at the heart of this and in addition to Hunter Biden's relationship with China, and so I think these are exactly why you have oversight, and this is exactly why you try to figure it out.
"I was glad to see the chairman didn't ... suggest that there was something he hasn't seen yet, but they're going to ask all the right questions to get all the right information in front of them."
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