Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Tuesday demanded the Secret Service provide the House Oversight Committee with visitor logs from the homes of former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence as the panel probes the mishandling of classified documents by top government leaders.
Raskin’s request matches that of panel Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who earlier this month demanded information from the Secret Service on visitors to President Biden’s Delaware home following revelations that highly sensitive material from his time as vice president was found in the house and garage.
“Given that the U.S. Secret Service provided protection for Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence during the time they stored classified materials at their respective residences, the Committee is seeking information from your agency regarding who had access to former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and former Vice President Pence’s personal residence since leaving office,” Raskin, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee, wrote in the letter to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
In the letter, Raskin gives the agency until Feb. 14 to comply with the request to turn over all documents and communications related to visitor information at Pence’s Carmel, Indiana home and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club since Jan. 21, 2021.
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Interest in congressional oversight over the handling of classified documents has intensified after the revelation earlier this month that Biden, 80, stored several pages of classified material at his former office at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington, DC.
Biden also admitted that classified materials were found inside his Wilmington home, prompting a federal criminal investigation.
Last week, Pence, 63, announced that he had also turned over about a dozen documents with classified markings to the National Archives after they were found at his home.
Federal authorities have recovered some 300 classified documents from the Trump presidency at Mar-a-Lago and other storage sites since the 76-year-old former president left office. Like Biden, he is also under criminal investigation.
Regarding visitor logs at Biden’s home, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi claimed earlier this month that the agency doesn’t “independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence.” But he later admitted that “the Secret Service does generate law enforcement and criminal justice information records for various individuals who may come into contact with Secret Service protected sites.”
According to a Fox News report, the Secret Service “is prepared to provide available background information on vetted guests to Biden’s residence if requested by Congress.”
