This week, the National Archives yielded a trove of nearly 6,000 pages of documents, among them 211 emails, submitted to the House Oversight Committee as part of its ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Gary Stern, serving as the general counsel for the National Archives, conveyed the handover in two correspondences dated March 26 to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, representing Kentucky, according to reports from Axios.
The release of documents comes on the heels of assertions by the committee regarding perceived obstruction from the National Archives in furnishing information pertinent to the inquiry. Simultaneously, there is a growing acknowledgment among Republicans that the protracted investigation might not culminate in the impeachment of the president.
In his letters, Stern outlined that the National Archives is presently engaged in a continuous process of notification to both former and incumbent Presidents’ representatives.
The assortment of emails submitted encompasses various requests from the committee. These include correspondences where Biden, during his tenure as vice president, employed a pseudonym, drafts of a speech he delivered to the Ukrainian government in 2015, and exchanges involving his son Hunter Biden or associates in his business endeavors.
To date, the National Archives has disclosed over 20,000 pages of emails concerning Hunter Biden and the wider Biden family, alongside surrendering an additional 75,000 pages of records to House Republicans, as indicated by a senior aide from the Democratic Party in the House.
The aide further elaborated that the National Archives has endeavored to handle these requests in good faith, augmenting its workforce threefold to address the escalating demands.
In a disclosure last autumn, the National Archives revealed that Biden had either sent or received up to 82,000 pages of private emails during his tenure as vice president. This revelation prompted Comer to assure that the Oversight Committee would eventually gain access to all pertinent communications.
Among the disclosures from the National Archives, it was divulged that emails were exchanged throughout all eight years of Biden’s vice presidency, including messages to or from three shadow email addresses: “robinware456@gmail.com,” “JRBWare@gmail.com,” and “Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov.”
Concurrently, Comer has hinted at a shift in focus for the investigation, indicating that its aim is no longer solely centered on the impeachment of Biden. Instead, there is a pivot towards seeking potential criminal referrals that a future Department of Justice could pursue, particularly if former President Donald Trump were to return to office.