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The White House went on the offensive Tuesday, demanding Kevin McCarthy reveal “secret deals” he made with conservatives as the war between President Joe Biden and Republicans intensifies.
As House Republicans demanded that Biden release more information about classified documents found at his Wilmington home, including visitor logs for his private Delaware resident, the administration is returning fire.
“Will House Republicans come clean and transparently reveal the secret deals Kevin McCarthy made with the extreme MAGA members of his caucus to gain their support for president?” asked Ian Sams, a spokesman for the law office. Biden at the White House.
Biden, meanwhile, remained silent on Tuesday’s questions about the documents.
President Joe Biden did not answer questions Tuesday about the classified documents.
The president did not respond to questions from reporters, including one about whether he would speak to special counsel Robert Hur, when he met Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Oval Office.
Biden simply sat quietly as White House staff led screaming members of the press out of the room.
Meanwhile, the White House escalated its battle with the Republican Party, asking McCarthy to reveal the deal he made to win over conservative hardliners to become House Speaker.
McCarthy needed 15 votes to gain enough support from his own party to become president. There have been reports of deals he made, including a deal that would allow only one lawmaker to issue a speaker withdrawal, but he has never detailed all the concessions he made.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates criticized the Republican Party for deals on abortion and other issues. He led the call to demand more transparency from Republicans.
‘What other backroom deals did Chairman McCarthy make behind closed doors with the most extreme ultramage members of the House Republican conference? The American people have a right to know, now, which is why we ask that you immediately make any and all of them public,” he said in a statement.
McCarthy has said he did not make any formal deals to win the votes he needed, but the Conservatives said they were promised certain concessions.
Some Republicans have even said that they are not sure of all that McCarthy promised to the right of the party.
McCarthy is already in battle mode with the White House, demanding cuts in government spending rather than raising the debt limit, a priority for conservatives.
The White House had hoped to do battle with House Republicans now that they have a majority in that chamber. They have already promised to investigate the president, his family and his administration.
Republicans also vowed to investigate classified documents found at Biden’s now-closed think tank in Washington DC and at his Wilmington home.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, sent a letter to Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain on Sunday demanding access to visitor logs kept for the Delaware home.
“Without a list of individuals who have visited your residence, the American people will never know who had access to these highly confidential documents,” he wrote.
The White House has said there are no visitor logs as it is a private home.
And on Tuesday, Sams held a briefing call with reporters to criticize the Republican investigations.
“Their outrage is pure theater,” he said.
He did not commit to the White House cooperating with Republican requests for documents and other information.
“We are limited in what we can say during an ongoing Justice Department investigation,” he said, referring to the special counsel’s investigation.
“We will make a determination on our response in due course, but of course we will report it when we see rampant hypocrisy, that shows a complete lack of credibility when it comes to these requests,” he said.
Sams, who will be the point person to answer questions about any Biden scandal, also did not say whether Biden would answer Hur’s questions.
“We’re not going to get ahead of that process with the special counsel and speculate about what they may or may not want or ask for,” he said.
The White House has demanded Kevin McCarthy reveal the deal he made with hardline conservatives to become president
Timeline of events that led Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Special Counsel Robert Hur to oversee the investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents
Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware
On Saturday, the White House revealed that a fourth batch of documents was found, again at Biden’s home in Wilmington.
The White House has faced repeated questions about its lack of transparency about when the documents were discovered. They waited about two months, until well after the November midterm elections, to announce the documents found in Biden’s DC think tank before voters went to the polls.
The attorney’s office then made two more announcements: it announced documents found in Biden’s garage at his Wilmington home, and then a third document found in a room in that home.
On Saturday, the administration announced that five more pages containing classified information were found at Biden’s home in Wilmington.
White House counsel Richard Sauber said that because he has security clearance and Biden’s personal lawyers do not, he had gone to the president’s home in Wilmington to examine other documents there.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that he would appoint special counsel to investigate the matter.
Biden previously said that he and his staff would cooperate with the investigation. He expressed surprise to discover that he had classified documents dating from when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president.
“People know that I take classified documents seriously,” Biden said last week, reading from a prepared statement.
“I’m going to have a chance to talk about this soon, God willing,” he added, as reporters yelled questions. “We’re going to see how this all plays out.”