Washington: The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware and located six additional documents with classified markings and took some of his notes, the president’s lawyer said. The documents retrieved by the FBI on Friday date back to Biden’s time in the Senate and the vice presidency, while the notes date to his time as vice president, said Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, on Saturday. He said the search of the entire complex lasted for about 13 hours. The level of classification, and whether the documents removed by the FBI remain classified, was not immediately clear as the Justice Department reviews the records.
The extraordinary discovery comes more than a week after Biden’s lawyers found six classified documents in the president’s home library from his time as vice president, and a “small number” of classified records in his former offices at Penn Biden. About three months after the Center in Washington. It came a day after Biden said “there aren’t any” on the document searches, which have become a political headache as he prepares to launch a re-election bid and justify himself to the American public after the turmoil undermining his efforts to portray the image of the presidency of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
“We found that some documents were filed in the wrong places,” Biden told reporters in California on Thursday. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Department of Justice.”
Biden said he is “cooperating fully and looking forward to resolving this quickly.” The President and First Lady Jill Biden were not at home when the home was searched. They were spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
It remains to be seen whether additional searches may be conducted by federal authorities in other locations. Biden’s personal attorneys previously searched the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they did not find any official documents or classified records.
The Biden probe has also complicated the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office. The Justice Department says Trump will take hundreds of records marked classified with him when he leaves the White House in early 2021, resisting months of requests to return them to the government, and obtaining a search warrant to retrieve them It was lying
Bauer said the FBI had requested that the White House not comment on the search prior to the search, and that Biden’s personal and White House lawyers were present. He added, “The FBI had complete access to the president’s home, which included personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules and reminders dating back decades.”
The Justice Department, he said, “took possession of materials believed to be within the scope of its investigation, including six items containing documents containing classification markings and surrounding material, some of which are from the President’s service in the Senate.” and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland US Attorney Robert Hurr as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents.
“From the beginning the president has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes it seriously,” White House counsel Richard Sauber said on Saturday. “The Office of Counsel to the President and the White House Counsel will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel to ensure that this process is conducted expeditiously and efficiently.”
The Biden document search and Trump’s investigation, which is in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith, are vastly different. Biden has said he cooperated with the DOJ investigation at every turn “and that Friday’s search was voluntary” although questions remain about his transparency with the public.