President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice said in a letter Friday to the House Judiciary Committee that it will likely not share information about the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified information from his time as vice president.

Classified documents connected with Biden were first found in his private office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., on November 2, less than a week before the 2022 midterm elections. Since then, Biden’s attorneys have located more classified documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on three separate occasions: an unspecified number found in the garage on December 20, one document found in Biden’s study on January 11, and five more found in the study on January 12.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur — who served during the Trump administration — to serve as special counsel in the investigation after the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, who was assigned to do an initial review of the case, recommended to Garland that a special counsel be appointed.

“Consistent with longstanding policy and practice, any oversight requests must be weighed against the Department’s interests in protecting the integrity of its work,” the DOJ said in a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH). “Longstanding Department policy prevents us from confirming or denying the existence of pending investigations in response to congressional requests or providing non-public information about our investigations.”

“The Department’s mission to independently and impartially uphold the rule of law requires us to maintain the integrity of our investigations, prosecutions, and civil actions, and to avoid even a perception that our efforts are influenced by anything but the law and the facts,” the letter continued. “So does the Department’s obligation to protect witnesses and law enforcement, avoid flight by those implicated in our investigations, and prevent additional crimes and attacks.”

The House Judiciary Committee responded to the letter, “Why’s DOJ scared to cooperate with our investigations?”

Why’s DOJ scared to cooperate with our investigations?

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) January 20, 2023

USA Today noted that the letter from the DOJ came in response to a letter from Jordan that “demanded documents and communications about a cache of classified documents found at Biden’s former office at a think tank in Washington and at his Wilmington home.”

Biden responded to the scandal on Thursday by saying that he has “no regrets” over his actions and that getting questions about the investigation “quite frankly bugs” him.

“We’re fully cooperating, looking forward to getting this resolved quickly,” Biden claimed. “I think you’re gonna find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do — that’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there, there.”

Leftist Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez Mina demanded reparations from the United States over climate change, even as the U.S. sends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the nation in economic and humanitarian aid. 

In an interview this week with POLITICO, Márquez said that the U.S. and other Western countries should pursue reparations in the form of debt forgiveness to Colombia over the issues of climate change and colonialism. 

“There’s no doubt that the United States has a role to play. The United States should be the first country to acknowledge that its global politics have helped keep black people around the world and in Africa in a state of subjugation,” Márquez said when asked if the U.S. should be involved in “global and climate reparations.”

“Countries that have participated in slavery and colonialism are the ones that have their black population living without the barest of necessities, in a state of precarity. Those countries most responsible for colonialism and slavery are today’s developed countries, the world superpowers, which paradoxically also emit the most greenhouse gases,” she added. 

Márquez then claimed that black people, Indigenous people, and women were most impacted by climate change. She said that the U.S. and other countries should institute a debt forgiveness program to free up resources for “marginalized and oppressed communities.”

“The United States should be at the forefront of that policy. I know there’s been some reckoning, some conversations about acknowledging that this country is responsible for slavery and racism and now also climate change. But now it’s necessary to translate that reckoning into concrete action,” said Márquez, who is a member of the leftist Soy Porque Somos party. 

According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. has routinely given hundreds of millions of dollars to Colombia in aid. Since 2001, the U.S. has given Colombia over $11 billion in humanitarian, economic, and military aid. 

In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. gave $479,676,863 to Colombia, with most of that money coming from USAID, but also a large chunk from the State Department. Included in this U.S. taxpayer funding was $198 million for emergency responses, $35 million for general environmental protection, and $23 million for disaster prevention and preparation. 

Márquez, who ran for office alongside current Colombian President and ex-guerrilla rebel Gustavo Petro, has previously demanded reparations from Western countries at a forum in Geneva, Switzerland.