Peter Schweizer, a senior contributor to Breitbart News and the president of the Government Accountability Institute, said Saturday that former Vice President Joe Biden should release the “Biden Papers” currently being held at the University of Delaware.
As Breitbart News reported in January, Biden is currently withholding from the public a total of 1,875 boxes of paper documents as well as an additional series of files comprising a sizable 415 gigabytes of electronic records. The Biden Papers, at Biden’s direction, are hidden at the University of Delaware and were scheduled for public release late last year. But when Biden decided to run for president in 2020, the standard for the public release of these documents changed to two years after Biden retires from “public life.”
The files resurged this week as a centerpiece of public interest as Biden fends off increasingly credible allegations of sexual assault from his former Senate staffer Tara Reade. Reade has alleged that Biden’s files contained at the University of Delaware would include a document that proves she is telling the truth that she filed a formal complaint with the proper authorities in the U.S. Senate in the early 1990s at the time of the alleged incident.
In an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel, Schweizer explained what the records are and laid out why Biden should release them in the interest of transparency.
“This is the archive of his Senate records and papers,” Schweizer said. “The question as it relates to the Tara Reade case and other issues is what is in these papers? What’s not likely to be in the papers is any sort of internal Biden staff memos or documents relating to her allegations. What I mean by that is let’s remember Congress, unlike the executive branch and unlike most corporations, they’re exempt from all of these laws that apply to worker rights and workplace disclosures. They don’t have the same HR, human resources, requirements the rest of us do. What is in that file is if Tara Reade did make a complaint at the time, complaints like this would have been filed by an independent agency within the Senate. She would file that complaint with that agency. That agency no longer exists. They would have sent notification to Biden’s office saying that these complaints would have been alleged. We’re in a dilemma right now in that the government agency where she would have filed the complaint no longer exists. Nobody seems to know where those records are. But if she made the complaint, that is probably within the files at the University of Delaware papers. I think that, look, I’m somebody that subscribes to and I know you do as well, that people are innocent until proven guilty, and you can look at the severity of the charges and you look at how people react. But Joe Biden has put himself in this box because he said when it came to Kavanaugh and others that that was not his standard, that you were supposed to believe the accuser. He’s sort of painted himself into this box where he’s telling everybody ‘no, no, no, a different standard applies to me than applies to Judge Kavanaugh or other people that face similar allegations.’”
During a Friday morning interview on Morning Joe on MSNBC, anchor Mika Brzezinski grilled Biden on Reade’s allegations—which Biden himself publicly denied for the first time despite previous statements from campaign staffers denying them as well. During the interview, Brzezinski asked Biden why he will not release the records he is hiding at the University of Delaware.
The part of the 20-minute interview about the records at the University of Delaware was particularly revealing, in that, first Biden falsely claimed the documents were not scheduled to be publicly released last year. Then he claimed, again incorrectly, that any document from Reade alleging Biden misconduct would only possibly exist at the National Archives.
A transcript of Brzezinski’s questions and Biden’s answers when this first came up in the interview is as follows:
BRZEZINSKI: “Your Senate documents at the University of Delaware were supposed to go public, and then they were resealed. The access was changed. I know you are saying any H.R. complaints could be in the National Archives, but why not reveal your Senate documents that are being held in Delaware? I know there’s 1,800-plus boxes. But if she believes and she alleges that the complaints may be hidden there, why not strive for complete transparency? Why was the access to those documents sealed up when they were supposed to be revealed?
BIDEN: Well, they weren’t supposed to be revealed. I gave them to the university, and the university said it’s going to take them time to go through all the boxes. They said that wouldn’t be before 2020 that that occurred, or 2021, I can’t remember the year they said. But look, a record like this can only be one place. It would not be at the University of Delaware. My archives do not contain personal files. My archives contain documents — and when I say personal, personnel files. They don’t contain any personnel files. They are public records, my speeches, my papers, my position papers. And if that document exists, it would be stored in the National Archives, where documents from the office she claims to have filed her complaint with are stored. That’s where they are stored. The Senate controls those archives, so I’m asking the secretary of the Senate today to identify whether any such document exists. If it does, make it public.
BRZEZINSKI: Right, but there are claims and concerns and reports in Business Insider, and she claims that possibly a complaint or some sort of record of this might be at the University of Delaware. So for complete transparency, why not push for the release of any documents with Tara Reade’s name on them, whether it’s at the University of Delaware or the National Archives?
BIDEN: First of all, let’s get this straight. There are no personnel documents. You can’t do that — you wouldn’t — for example, if you worked with mayor, I worked for you, and you had my income tax returns, you had my whatever — they’re private documents. They’re not for — they don’t get put out in the public. They’re not part of the public record that in fact, that any senator or vice president or president has in their documents. Look, there was one place that she could file the complaint, and that office at the time was — all those records from that office are in the Archives, and they’re controlled by the Senate. That’s where personnel documents would be if they exist. That’s where the complaint would be if it exists.
Within two hours of the interview, the National Archives publicly confirmed what Biden said on MSNBC was false and that no such record would exist there. So then Biden wrote a letter that he personally signed to the Secretary of the Senate asking to help identify any documents that may exist surrounding a complaint Reade may have filed in the early 1990s.
But later in the interview with Brzezinksi, the Biden Papers at the University of Delaware again came up—and Biden admitted some of what might be contained in there, including correspondence and communication he had with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Here is a transcript of that relevant portion of the interview:
BRZEZINSKI: Do you agree with the reporting that those records were supposed to be revealed to the public, and then they were resealed for a longer period of time, until you leave, quote, public life? And if you agree with that, if that’s what happened, why did that happen?
BIDEN: Because look, the fact is that there’s a lot of things, of speeches I’ve made, positions I’ve taken, interviews that I did overseas with people, all of those things relating to my job, and the idea that they would all be made public in the fact while I was running for public office, they could be really taken out of context. They’re papers or position papers, they are documents that existed and that — when I met, for example, when I met with Putin or when I met with whomever, and all of that could be fodder in a campaign at this time. I don’t know of anybody who’s done anything like that. And so the National Archives is the only place there would be anything having to do with personnel records. There are no personnel records in the Biden papers at the university.
Schweizer said it is significant that Biden admitted, in a roundabout way in an attempt to dismiss Reade’s claims, that the documents and papers contained in the archives at the University of Delaware are position papers and related to his dealings on major issues of national importance and with foreign leaders, including particularly Putin. This, he said, is why all these documents should be released before the election so the voters can decide what they think of Biden’s record.
“I am somebody that always believes politicians should disclose as much as possible. I’m one of the people, for example, who said with Donald Trump it would be a good idea for him to release his tax records,” Schweizer said. “I think when it comes to the Joe Biden records, absolutely he should. Again, let’s keep in mind, the other thing he is protected from is that Congress is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. So you could not get access to any of Joe Biden’s correspondence during his Senate career or in fact when he’s vice president because they’re exempt too. You can’t get access to any private correspondence, any emails that are occurring between him and his staff, so I absolutely agree. There should be full disclosure. Joe Biden has consistently said he has nothing to hide, and my point would be: then demonstrate that by releasing the records. You cannot have it both ways and Joe Biden is trying to have it both ways. He’s trying to say that Donald Trump should disclose all these things, but he should not disclose anything. The fact of the matter is obviously like I said I think Trump should release his tax returns, but Donald Trump was a private citizen. He was a businessman. Joe Biden was on the public payroll. He was an elected official. So I think the threshold for disclosure for him should be much higher than it is for a private businessman, whether it’s Donald Trump or Michael Bloomberg for that matter. I think that Biden is in a difficult situation. You see people starting to turn on these questions and the whole issue related to Tara Reade is probably going to come down to if there are other people who come forward with detailed, credible allegations. Right now, it’s he-said, she-said. If it becomes, he-said, she-said, she-said, she-said, she-said, then I think Joe Biden has got serious, serious problems.”
What’s more, Schweizer added, is that Biden refusing to release the Biden Papers at the University of Delaware undercuts his narrative that he has had a long and respectable career in government.
“What is Joe Biden’s chief selling point as a candidate? It’s his resumé,” Schweizer said. “That’s what he’s really saying is ‘I’m the one that’s been in public office all these years, I’m experienced.’ He talks all the time about having conversations with foreign leaders and says, ‘I’ve negotiated these various things.’ Well, people want to know what are the details of those conversations? Especially since as we’ve highlighted at Breitbart and has been focused on in my books, there’s this massive intertwining between the official power that Joe Biden had as a Senator and as Vice President of the United States and the commercial interests of his family. So you’re right. We need to know what correspondence and communication did he have with Ukraine? Did he have discussions and conversations involving Burisma?”
LISTEN TO PETER SCHWEIZER ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY:
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