Classified Documents From Biden’s Vice Presidency Found at Think Tank

Kanishka Singh and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Classified documents from Joe Biden‘s vice-presidential days were discovered in November by the U.S. president’s personal attorneys at a Washington think tank, a White House lawyer said on Monday.

Nearly 10 documents were found at Biden‘s office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, CBS News reported earlier, adding that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had asked the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review the classified documents which were handed over to the National Archives.

The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Biden on Nov. 2, days before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a statement on Monday.

The Penn Biden Center is named for Biden, who periodically used the office space from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign. Sauber stated that the White House Counsel’s Office informed the National Archives the day after the discovery of these documents. The National Archives then took possession of the material the next morning.

Sauber said that the documents were not subject to any prior request or inquiry from the National Archives.

The documents were discovered when Biden‘s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber stated. Sauber said that the White House is cooperating with the Justice Department as well as the National Archives.

The Justice Department, National Archives and think tank didn’t respond to a request of comment. Biden was vice president under former President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.

Sauber did not specify the number of classified documents or what they contained, nor their classification level. CBS News reported they did not contain nuclear secrets.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, said in a statement that Biden‘s attorneys “appear to have taken immediate and proper action” After finding the documents. Raskin stated that he was confident Garland would succeed. “make an impartial decision about any further action that may be needed.”

Separately, the Justice Department is investigating former President Donald Trump’s handling highly sensitive classified documents that were kept at his Florida resort in January 2021 after he left the White House. FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8. This search was approved by the court. Among the thousands of records seized, 100 documents were marked as classified.

“When is the FBI going raid all these homes?”

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