US: DOJ finds more classified files at Joe Biden's home
January 22, 2023
The US Justice Department (DOJ) has searched President Joe Biden's Wilmington, Delaware residence and located six more classified documents, the president's attorney said in a statement on Saturday.
"DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials," Bob Bauer, Biden's lawyer, said in a statement.
What documents were found?
Some of the classified documents found during the 13-hour search on Friday dated back to Biden's tenure as US senator from Delaware. Biden served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Others were from the time he was the vice president in US President Barack Obama's administration from 2009 to 2017, his lawyer said.
Additionally, according to Bauer, the DOJ also found some handwritten notes that Biden had made while serving as vice president.
The president offered access "to his home to allow DOJ to conduct a search of the entire premises for potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material," Bauer said.
Neither Biden nor his wife were present at the time of the search.
'Documents were filed in the wrong place'
On Thursday, Biden said that a few "documents were filed in the wrong place."
"We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department," he said.
He dismissed the outcry over the discoveries, saying that "there's nothing there."
This came a week after classified papers from Biden's tenure as vice president were discovered in the president's private library. Three months prior, a "small number" of classified materials were discovered in his old offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington DC.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Robert Hur to act as a quasi-independent prosecutor. Hur served as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland under former US President Donald Trump.
Trump also under scrutiny over handling of classified info
Following the discovery of classified information at Biden's home and old office, questions were raised about how the circumstances relate with the seizure of hundreds of confidential documents from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida mansion owned by Trump.
Since Trump left office in January 2021, some 300 papers have been found at his residences.
In August, a total of 33 boxes and containers containing 11,000 papers were seized by FBI agents from Mar-a-Lago, including around 100 with classified markings discovered in a storage room and an office.
The search was conducted following a sworn confirmation from Trump's attorneys that all government documents had been returned.
The White House highlighted that Biden's team has cooperated with authorities in their probe and had turned over all documents found.
Trump, in contrast, had refused until the FBI search of his Florida property in August.
ss/wd (AP, Reuters, AFP)