White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre felt the pressure from reporters on Tuesday when they kept asking her about the “inaccurate” information about classified documents in President Joe Biden’s possession.
Jean-Pierre clearly said earlier that all the classified documents had been found and sent to the National Archives and Records Administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to be investigated.
But then Biden’s special counsel, Robert Sauber, said the next day that there were five additional documents discovered in a garage at Biden’s Delaware home.
KJP maintains that she did not know of the other documents that were found.
One reporter said, “On Friday, you stood here, though, and were asked about the documents issued by our counsel 18 times. At that point, the president’s lawyers had found these five additional pages of classified documents, so did you not know on Friday that those documents had been found when you were at the podium, or are you being directed by someone to not be forthcoming on this issue?”
She responded immediately by saying that she has been forthcoming and said at the time, that is all they were aware of. She also promised to be “prudent” and “consistent” about this story and that she would not interfere with the DOJ’s investigation.
Then, she said that the president had confidence in the way his team was handling the investigation.
Then, CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang asked the press secretary if the White House knew about the five additional documents as of Friday.
“I literally just answered that question … I was very clear. I provided the information that you all had at the time—” Jean-Pierre replied.
And she reiterated that the White House found the five additional documents at the same time the public found out.
But the reporter persisted and questioned why the White House counsel went to Biden’s private home to begin the process of transferring the documents to the DOJ.
That’s not a bad question at all…and they can’t answer it.
