Additional classified papers removed from Biden’s home library
Lawyers for President Biden have found still more classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Del., the White House acknowledged Saturday.
White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s private library. The White House had previously discussed the discovery of a single page there.
The latest disclosure is in addition to the discovery of documents from his time as vice president that were found in December in Biden’s garage and in November at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
The apparent mishandling of classified documents and official records from the Obama administration is under investigation by a former U.S. attorney, Robert Hur, who was appointed as a special counsel on Thursday by Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland.
President Biden’s legal team has discovered additional documents containing classification markings, a source told the Associated Press.
Sauber said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s personal lawyers, who did not have security clearances, stopped their search after finding the first page Wednesday evening. Sauber found the remaining material Thursday as he was facilitating the Department of Justice‘s retrieval of the document.
“While I was transferring it to the [Justice Department] officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said. “The [Justice Department] officials with me immediately took possession of them.”
Sauber has previously said the White House is “confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake.”
His statement did not explain why the White House waited two days to provide an updated accounting of the number of classified records. The White House is already facing scrutiny for waiting more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of the initial group of documents.
On Thursday, asked whether Biden could guarantee that additional classified documents would not turn up in a further search, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “You should assume that it’s been completed, yes.”
Sauber reiterated Saturday that the White House would cooperate with Hur’s investigation.
Robert Hur will serve as special counsel to investigate the presence of documents with classified markings found in Biden’s home and office.
Bob Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer, said his legal team had “attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity.”
The Justice Department has historically imposed a high legal bar before bringing criminal charges in cases involving the mishandling of classified information, requiring that someone intended to break the law as opposed to being merely careless or negligent. The primary statute governing the illegal removal and retention of classified documents makes it a crime to knowingly remove classified documents and store them in an unauthorized way.
The circumstances in Biden’s case appear to differ from the investigation into the mishandling of classified documents found at former President Trump’s resort and residence in Florida.
In Trump’s case, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating whether anyone sought to obstruct the federal investigation into the retention of classified records at the Palm Beach estate.
Justice Department officials have said Trump’s representatives failed to fully comply with a subpoena that sought the return of classified records, prompting agents to return to the home with a search warrant to collect additional materials.
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