White House confirms second set of classified docs found in Biden’s garage
Washington — A second group of records with classified markings dating from President Biden’s time as vice president was found in his home in Wilmington, Delaware, a White House attorney confirmed Thursday. The president himself also confirmed the discovery of additional documents.
CBS News reported Wednesday that additional documents marked as classified had been identified at a location separate from the Penn Biden Center in Washington, where other documents were first discovered by the president’s attorneys. Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review the material found at the Penn Biden Center.
In a statement, Richard Sauber, a special counsel to the president, said Mr. Biden’s lawyers searched his residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth, where files from his vice presidential office may have been shipped in 2017. That review was completed Wednesday night.
Sauber said a “small number” of additional Obama-Biden administration records marked classified were discovered in a garage in the president’s Wilmington home, and another single document was discovered among material in an adjacent room. Mr. Biden’s attorneys found no documents in the president’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach. Sauber’s statement said the Justice Department was “immediately notified” of the documents.
Garland was set to deliver a statement from the Justice Department at 1:15 p.m. ET, although the subject matter was not immediately clear.
Sauber said the president and his attorneys are “fully cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in possession of the Archives.”
On Thursday, Mr. Biden reiterated that he and his attorneys are fully cooperating. The president said he will speak about this more, “God willing,” soon.
“As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously,” the president told reporters. “I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review. As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents of — from my time as vice president were stored, and they finished the review last night. They discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas, in file cabinets in my home and my personal library.”
The revelations about the Biden documents come as the Justice Department continues to review former President Donald Trump’s presidential records. In August, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago that yielded more than 100 documents marked classified.
That search followed repeated efforts by the Archives and the Justice Department to retrieve what the government considered to be sensitive documents from Trump’s personal residence that were required to have been turned over to the Archives under the law.