Rand Paul laments overclassification of documents in hearing for Archives nominee

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday lamented the overclassification of government documents during the second Senate confirmation hearing for President Biden’s nominee for the head of the National Archives.

“The bigger problem, though, I think, is that everything is classified,” Paul said while questioning archivist nominee Colleen Shogan. “We just, we classify everything. The menu at the White House is supposedly classified.”

He added that he thinks there has been an “overreaction” to the classified documents found both at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and President Biden’s former office and residence.

“What we’re stuck with now is, you know, millions of dollars will be spent on these investigations,” Paul said. “And there should be an investigation of neither Biden nor Trump nor [former Vice President Mike] Pence on this.”

“I think we’re not going to find that secrets to making, you know, nuclear weapon were at someone’s house,” he added. “I think we’re going to find that a lot of stuff’s classified that doesn’t need to be classified.”

Paul also noted that overclassification makes oversight more difficult. In particular, he pointed to his difficulty obtaining information from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the origins of COVID-19.

“We can’t have true oversight of government if [the Department of Health and Human Services] and NIH is telling us it’s none of your business,” Paul said. “I mean we really have to get ahold of what’s going on.”

Paul, who frequently sparred with disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci on pandemic-related issues, is pushing for the declassification of documents from the Department of Energy after reports emerged on Sunday that the department had concluded based on new intelligence that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the pandemic. 

The determination was reportedly offered with “low confidence,” and the White House has sought to play down the conclusion, noting that intelligence agencies have not reached a “definitive conclusion” on the virus’s origins.

This was Shogan’s second confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The hearing for her initial confirmation in September was largely overshadowed by the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago the month before, and Shogan was ultimately not confirmed.

Amid concerns that Trump had not turned over all classified materials in his possession, the FBI obtained a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago in August and found about 100 classified documents.

The classified documents scandal expanded this January, when it was revealed that several classified documents had been found at a Washington, D.C., office used by Biden following his tenure as vice president.

Further searches led to the discovery of additional documents at his Wilmington, Del., home. Classified materials were also found at Pence’s Indiana home in January.