House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Mike Turner says it would be “incredibly difficult” not to discover that President Biden has broken the law by handling classified material.
Turner, who is from Dayton, Ohio, made the comments during a preview of a closed-door hearing he will hold next Tuesday with Special Counsel John Durham. Durham released a damning report last month detailing the FBI’s deeply flawed basis for opening the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the now-debunked Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations.
As part of the hearing, he plans to work with Durham to find legislative solutions to resolve systemic issues within the Justice Department — which comes as the agency investigates Biden for alleged mishandling of classified documents, and little more than a week after DOJ indicts Trump. on 37 counts, including obstruction of justice.
When asked on Thursday by DailyMail.com if he and his members of the Intelligence Committee have read any of the classified documents taken by the FBI from former President Trump and Biden’s residences and the Penn Biden Center, Turner confirmed “yes.” .
Chairman Mike Turner’s committee will meet with Special Counsel John Durham next week
And the National Archives “will continue to provide” more documents as they are processed, he added.
Turner also said the “categories and types” of classified documents cited in Trump’s 37-count indictment are consistent with what his committee is currently assessing.
Since reviewing the documents, he said Biden’s “conduct” and described in the Trump complaint — based on their alleged mishandling of the classified materials — is “wrong.”
“If you just retract the statute, it would be incredibly difficult for someone not to conclude that Biden’s actions violate specific statutes,” he said when looking at the “facts.”
The chairman is particularly concerned about the potential “unequal application” of the law by the Justice Department in how it handles the Trump documents case compared to the Biden case.
“I believe there are serious issues that erode the department’s credibility,” he told DailyMail.com and a handful of other national security reporters.
“If you have what people now see as an uneven application of the law with regard to Clinton and Trump — if there is no criminal prosecution of Biden as well, it will only reinforce that,” he says.
‘And that means that people will lose confidence in their country. And that’s huge.’
He did not go so far as to suggest a prosecution by Biden, only that there should be “equal application of the law.”
“If they decide not to prosecute, I think it will further erode people’s confidence, when already we don’t see a prosecution of Hillary Clinton and a prosecution of Donald Trump.”
“Equal application of the law is a huge problem, especially when it’s political, especially when it follows what we’ve seen of the total politicization of the intelligence community (IC) and the FBI and the Justice Department.”
Biden’s investigation is being handled by Special Counsel Rob Hur, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January.
He has not yet provided a public update on whether or when charges would be filed against Biden.
Trump was arrested last week in Miami, Florida, and pleaded not guilty to 37 federal counts — including mishandling classified information and obstruction of justice.
DOJ discovered boxes of potentially classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom
The former president waves as he steps out of his Boeing 757 Monday afternoon ahead of his arrest in Miami Tuesday
Turner’s committee is in the unique position of conducting most of its work behind closed doors, which he says is helpful in building working relationships with witnesses as they work together on solutions.
HPSCI is focusing on working with Durham to find immediate solutions to trials and punishments within the DOJ and FBI following Durham’s report.
He said the aspect of Durham’s report that he found “most disturbing” is that it shows “misconduct at the FBI, at the Department of Justice and concerns at the intelligence community itself.”
“I’ve had personal conversations with John Durham that our goal at the hearing that we have this coming up is not just to go over his report and the issues he identifies, but to get his recommendations on where changes need to happen.”
He said it is important to promote solutions right now as the committee is in the process of extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – which is due for renewal by the end of the year.
He added that another major concern is that the DOJ and FBI used opposition research in political campaigns “to politicize government functions in order to negatively influence an opposition candidate.”
He hopes to work with Durham and the committee to find solutions as soon as possible before the next election.
It’s not just a matter of bad people in positions of power corrupting those positions. It is also that our rules and laws need to be changed. So that these mechanisms cannot be used again in this way to really harm the American public.”
Time is of the essence as the 2024 presidential election is just around the corner, which Turner acknowledged.