OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
There is a major issue with the records of the people who have visited President Joe Biden the many times he has been in Delaware. And the issue is they do not exist.
The Secret Service has admitted again that it does not have any records of who visited the president in his home state where he has spent approximately a fourth of his presidency, The New York Post reported.
The agency made the baffling claim in its denial of a Freedom of Information Act appeal from The Post.
Secret Service deputy director Faron Paramore wrote in a letter dated Sept. 27 that “the agency conducted an additional search of relevant program offices for potentially responsive records.”
“This search also produced no responsive records,” Paramore wrote. “Accordingly, your appeal is denied.”
The Post is evaluating legal options to acquire records of who visited the president during the nearly 200 days he was at his Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach homes.
“The claim that there are no visitor logs for President Biden’s Delaware residence is a bunch of malarkey,” Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer said.
“Americans deserve to know who President Biden is meeting with, especially since we know that he routinely met with [first son] Hunter’s business associates during his time as vice president,” he said.
In April the Secret Service said it did not have any records of who President Joe Biden meets with when he is at his home in Delaware, where he has spent considerable time during his presidency.
He has spent around a quarter of his first year as president at his residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, but not much is known about any official meetings he has had or any lobbying efforts that took place, The New York Post reported.
The Post sought more than one year of visitor log records, including for Biden’s first year in office, but Secret Service Freedom of Information Act officer Kevin Tyrrell wrote in a response dated Monday that “[t]he Secret Service FOIA Office searched all Program Offices that were likely to contain potentially responsive records, and no records were located.”
First son Hunter Biden is under criminal investigation for possible tax fraud and unregistered foreign lobbying after routinely seeking business in countries where his father held sway as vice president. The younger Biden worked on some overseas projects with his uncle Jim Biden.
Documents and photos from a laptop that formerly belonged to Hunter Biden indicate that he introduced his dad to business associates from China, Mexico, Russia, and Ukraine — including at the vice president’s residence in Washington.
Biden was at one of his Delaware homes for 99 days during his first year in office, including for official business, such as an Oct. 24 breakfast where Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lobbied centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to support Biden’s Build Back Better Act social spending plan.
The president has said before that people who visit him, like family members, have influenced his thinking.
“I was sitting in my kitchen yesterday and here’s a sunroom off the kitchen and my wife was there with her sister and a good friend named Mary Ann,” he said. “And she was saying, ‘Do you realize it’s over $5 for a pound of hamburger meat? $5?’”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) was successful in its efforts to get records pertaining to a visit by a Japanese delegation to former President Trump at Mar-a-lago.
“While we won access to those records, we never got much, as the Secret Service came out and said they were not vetting the president’s meetings, the Trump Organization was,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the group said.
“I have not seen any reporting that there is a ton of official business and outside meetings being done when Biden goes to his personal residence in Delaware for the weekend, mainly just going to church,” Libowitz said. “If he were meeting with foreign heads of state at his house in Delaware, that would obviously be a different matter, though.”
Judicial Watch has sued for access to President Biden’s visitor’s log and accused the Secret Service of playing a “shell game.”
“Obviously the Secret Service knows and tracks who is visiting President Biden at his homes in Delaware and they are playing a shell game with the public to keep that information secret,” the group’s president, Tom Fitton, said.
