House investigators spoke with a former aide to President Joe Biden — with links to his son Hunter — who has become a central figure in the commander-in-chief’s classified documents scandal.
Kathy Chung, a vice presidential assistant to Biden who went on to become Pentagon official, participated in a transcribed interview with the Oversight Committee on Tuesday, according to an announcement by Chairman James Comer (R-KY).
Across multiple media reports, Chung emerged as a key figure who is said to have overseen the transport of materials to the Penn Biden Center — a think tank in Washington, D.C. — after Biden left the vice presidency in early 2017, and has already been interviewed by federal investigators as part of the Justice Department’s probe into the matter.
Comer said Chung provided “startling information that undermines the Biden White House’s narrative” in regarding the president’s handling of documents — a controversy that has dogged Biden ever since it came to light in January when it was publicly revealed that Biden’s attorneys found about 10 documents marked classified while clearing out Biden’s office at the center in November of last year.
“Today we learned that when Joe Biden left the vice presidency, boxes containing classified documents, vice presidential records, and other items were stored in three different locations around the Washington, D.C. area, including an office near the White House, an office in Chinatown, and eventually the Penn Biden Center,” Comer said.
“At some point, the boxes containing classified materials were transported by personal vehicles to an office location,” he added. “The boxes were not in a ‘locked closet’ at the Penn Biden Center and remained accessible to Penn Biden employees as well as potentially others with access to the office space. We need to find out who had access to these documents.”
The chairman shared one more revelation: “We also learned today that then-White House Counsel Dana Remus tasked Kathy Chung with retrieving these boxes from the Penn Biden Center as early as May 2022. This story does not begin in November 2022, as represented by President Biden’s attorney.”
The top Democrat on the oversight panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), also released a statement about the interview with Chung.
“Ms. Chung has cooperated with Committee Republicans every step of the way — providing materials to investigators, voluntarily sitting for an interview, and working in good faith with Congress,” Raskin said. “She repeatedly explained that she was unaware that there were alleged classified documents at the Penn Biden Center until November 2022, when the documents were first discovered by counsel for President Biden.”
Raskin went on to criticize the Republicans for not placing more focus on former President Donald Trump’s conduct. The Democrat also accused Oversight Committee Republicans of “knowingly” misrepresenting Chung’s work and promoting “a baseless, outrageous, and racist conspiracy theory about her” — apparently suggestions that she could be a Chinese foreign agent — “all in order to create a mirage of fake evidence for their empty attacks on President Biden.”
Biden’s personal attorneys and the White House have insisted they are cooperating with the National Archives and Justice Department. Biden has said he was “surprised” government documents were found at his private office space, but congressional Republicans remain suspicious.
“In the coming days, the Oversight Committee will follow up with persons of interest in this investigation,” Comer said in his statement.
While Congress conducts its own investigation, special counsel Robert Hur is working to determine whether any laws were broken in connection to the handling of records found at the Penn Biden Center and other locations, including the president’s homes in Delaware.