The White House continues to face a steady drip of revelations about its classified documents scandal, with leaks to the media coming in spite of repeated transparency pledges and promises that all searches are complete.
Once again, a news report drove the public disclosure.
That strategy has left the administration on the back foot repeatedly and is likely to do so again, argues Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.
BITTERLY DIVIDED SENATE FINDS COMMON ENEMY IN DOJ 'STONEWALLING' ON CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
“The administration has handled the situation poorly,” Bannon said. “They should have found a way to head this problem off at the pass a long time ago.”
The latest news came Wednesday morning when CBS News reported that President Joe Biden's Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home was being searched by the FBI. That came just one day after the same outlet reported that the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., was searched by the FBI in November.
"Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware," Bob Bauer, Biden's personal attorney, said in a statement about the Rehoboth search. "Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate."
But that statement came out only after news of the search leaked to the media, and no such statement was issued when the Penn Biden Center was searched in November. Instead, it seems to gel with reporting in the Washington Post that the Biden administration has chosen only to react to developments that are publicly known.
What should have happened, Bannon argues, is that after documents were found at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, FBI searches would have been conducted immediately there and at Biden's two houses. The information could have been released and the story out and over by the end of the year.
Instead, the public learned of the initial discovery via news reports in early January, and a steady drip of new revelations has included four separate rounds of discovery at Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home, plus more news this week about Rehoboth and the University of Pennsylvania think tank.
Biden spent significant time at both of his homes between the initial classified document discovery and the time the houses were searched.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said six times on Jan. 12 that the search for documents was complete and was later confronted by reporters when those statements turned out to be false.
The White House would not say on Wednesday whether all searches have been completed.
"I think we're providing information as this goes on and answering questions about the search activities as they've been happening," said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House general counsel. "I don't want to speak too much to the DOJ practices in an ongoing investigation."
The administration has also attempted to downplay the situation, with communications director Kate Bedingfield saying Biden was focused on things that matter.
But those statements, too, are undercut by Biden's reaction when classified documents were found at former President Donald Trump's Florida home last year. Biden wondered aloud at the time how anyone could be that irresponsible.
An NBC News poll found that an equal percentage of people, 67%, are now as concerned about Biden's classified documents as they are about Trump's.
However, the widening scope of the classified documents scandal may work in Biden's favor. In addition to his White House predecessor, documents have been found in the possession of former Vice President Mike Pence.
Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, agrees with Bannon that searches should have been conducted and disclosed months ago.
"That's the only way to effectively deal with a scandal of any size," said Painter, who gave lectures on the handling of classified documents during his time in the White House. "My approach would have been to search everywhere from top to bottom in November, then put out a notice."
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Unfortunately, Painter added, that's rarely the case in the real world, whether it's Watergate, the Bush-era U.S. attorneys firing scandal, or Biden's classified documents.
"In most White Houses, this is what has happened," he said. "People don't want to bite the bullet."