Let's cut to the chase: did Joe Biden remove classified documents from the National Archives that would incriminate him in the influence-peddling racket he and his family were running?  That's the most important question about them, and that's probably why the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) is being stonewalled in its demand to see them.  All members of the SSCI have high-level security clearances and are considered able to see them.  Trish Turner and Allison Pecorin report for ABC News:

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee emerged outraged from a two-hour secure briefing with Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines, threatening to grind the chamber's business to a halt if the Biden administration does not provide access to the classified documents seized from the current president and former President Donald Trump.

Senators in both parties have claimed the administration is refusing to let them see the materials, even blocking lawmakers with the highest security clearance, like Senate Intelligence Committee members, while the special counsel probes are ongoing over how Biden and Trump handled the classified records while out of office.

The fact that Democrats are joining Republicans in their outrage would seem to indicate that the party consensus is that Biden needs to go before he torpedoes the 2024 presidential and congressional elections and that the Deep State intelligence apparatus wants him gone, too.  Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), whose ties to the Intelligence Community are profound, is on board:

"I'm very disappointed with the lack of detail and a timeline on when we're going to get a briefing, not on anything dealing with criminality — that's an appropriate Department of Justice responsibility — but it is our responsibility to make sure that we, in our role as intelligence oversight, know if there's been any intelligence compromise," Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va, said in a rare rebuke of the administration.

"Every member of the committee, regardless of Democrat or Republican, [was] unanimous in that this position that we are left in ... until somehow a special counsel designates that it's OK for us to get briefed is not going to stand," Warner said. "And all things will be on the table to make sure that doesn't happen," he warned.

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Senator Tom Cotton is putting teeth into the demand for the documents:

Tom Cotton says he will slow down confirmation of all of President Joe Biden's nominees until Congress is allowed to review the classified documents found at the residences of Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The Arkansas Republican senator emerged Wednesday from a classified briefing with Biden officials, including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and accused the administration of "stonewalling" Congress. In response, Cotton said senators will "impose pain on the administration until they provide these documents. And that is coming from both parties."

"I'm prepared to refuse consent or to fast-track any nominee for any department or agency. And take every step I can on every committee on which I serve to impose consequences on the administration until they provide these documents for the Congress to make our own informed judgment about the risk to national security," Cotton said.

Cotton's stance threatens to shut down an already slow-moving Senate.

This is going to get very interesting. If Biden's operatives continue to stonewall, Democrats will either have to consent to the Senate slowdown or reverse themselves on document release, which would not just be embarrassing, but might incriminate them in a cover-up when the documents come out, as they surely will, given the momentum among Democrats behind exorcising Biden from office.  

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab.