by Lee Smith at Tablet Mag
At the center of the Biden document cover-up is the question of who blocked the National Archives and Records Administration from informing the U.S. public about the classified records found in the president’s office in early November. The archives’ general counsel told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability that he couldn’t divulge that information, but GOP House leadership concluded that only Attorney General Merrick Garland or Biden himself could have given those orders.
But there’s a third powerful name in play, this one from outside of the government: David Rubenstein. Co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm the Carlyle Group, Rubenstein is one of the archives’ most generous patrons. In 2013, the David M. Rubenstein Gallery at the National Archives was completed at a cost of $13.5 million. Rubenstein is also a major Biden ally. He has regularly hosted the Biden family at his Nantucket estate for Thanksgiving—in 2022, 2021, and 2014.
According to the chairman of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee James Comer, the archives’ “inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.” And, indeed, under recently retired chief archivist David Ferreiro, the archives gladly joined forces with the Department of Justice-led anti-Trump campaign. As Trump’s lawyers were negotiating last winter with archives officials over which documents constituted presidential records and which were personal, Ferreiro, his tenure winding down, struck his final blow for the resistance: He referred the former president to the DOJ for a criminal investigation that led to the FBI’s August raid of Trump’s Florida home.
For Americans wondering why, in contrast to its partisan activism last summer, the National Archives has suddenly gone silent during the Biden affair, Rubenstein’s patronage may offer a clue. A spokesperson for Rubenstein said he played no role in this matter and a spokesperson from the National Archives responded that they have no comment.
Indeed, Biden’s friend Rubenstein appears to exercise considerable influence over…