Washington – The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched the home of US President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday, where it found six additional documents with classified marks and removed some of the president’s notes, it said. Biden’s attorney on Saturday.
Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney, said the search of Biden’s entire residence lasted nearly 13 hours. The documents seized by the FBI spanned the time when the president served in the Senate and as vice president, while the notes date from his time as vice president.
It was not known at this time the level of classification of the documents and if they were still classified because the Department of Justice has them under review.
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The search came more than a week after Biden’s lawyers found six more classified documents in the library of the president’s home from his time as vice president, and nearly three months after his lawyers found a small number of classified documents in his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
The new record came a day after the president stated that “there is nothing there” in relation to the discovery of the documents, which have become a political headache for Biden and have complicated the Justice Department’s investigation of Former President Donald Trump’s withholding of classified and official documents after leaving office.
âWe found a small number of documents stored in the wrong place,â Biden told reporters who asked him about the matter as the president was touring storm-damaged areas in California.
âWe immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Department of Justice,â he added.
The president and first lady Jill Biden were not at the home during the search. The couple is spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
It remains to be seen whether federal authorities could conduct additional searches elsewhere. Biden’s personal lawyers earlier conducted a search of the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they had found no official or classified documents.
Bauer said the FBI requested that the White House not comment on the search before it took place, and that both Biden’s personal and White House attorneys be present. He added that the FBI “had full access to the President’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, documents, folders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.”
The Department of Justice, it added, “took possession of materials it deemed to be within the scope of its investigation, including six items consisting of documents with classification marks and surrounding materials, some of which belonged to the President’s service in the Senate.” and others were from his tenure as vice president.â
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland federal prosecutor Robert Hur as 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 Saturday.
“Counsels for the President and the White House Legal Counsel will continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice and Special Counsel to help ensure that this process is completed quickly and efficiently.”
The discoveries of the documents in Biden’s possession and the investigation of Trump, which is in the hands of special legal counsel Jack Smith, are of a different nature.
The Justice Department says Trump took hundreds of classified-marked documents with him when he left the White House in early 2021 and for months ignored requests to return them.
Biden has sought to cooperate at all times with the Justice Department investigation, although questions remain about the president’s transparency with the public.
