Five more classified documents found at Biden’s Wilmington home, lawyer says

(The HillThe White House announced Saturday that five classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president were found at a mansion in Wilmington, Delaware.

The president’s special adviser, Richard Sauber, said in a statement that one classified document was found Wednesday night in a room adjacent to Biden’s garage. The search was paused because it did not have the clearance.

Sauber, who has security clearance, arrived Thursday night to facilitate the transfer of documents to the Justice Department.

“While forwarding it to a Justice Department official who was accompanying us, we discovered five pages of material with additional classification markings, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said. “The Justice Department official who was with me got them right away.”

The discovery of five more documents brings the total number of classified and marked materials found in Biden’s former office and Wilmington home to about 20. Biden arrived at his home in Wilmington Friday night. There he plans to spend the weekend, as he often does.

Sauber asked further questions to the special counsel appointed on Thursday, instructed him to look into the matter further, and reiterated that the White House will cooperate with the special counsel.

“The president’s attorneys immediately took spontaneous action to provide the Penn-Biden documents to the National Archives and the Wilmington documents to the Justice Department,” Sauber said in a statement. “We have released specific details about the documents identified, how they were identified, and where they were found.”

On November 2, 2022, the president’s attorneys found about 10 classified documents in the Washington, D.C. office that Biden used from 2017 to 2019 as professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. bottom. The discovery was confirmed by the White House on Monday after being reported by CBS News.

Additional documents were reported to have been found in a second location on Wednesday. The White House confirmed on Thursday that lawyers searched Biden’s homes in Wilmington, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach after the office was found, revealing classified materials in Biden’s Wilmington garage and one document in an adjacent room. discovered.

Five additional documents were discovered Thursday night, but the findings weren’t made public until Saturday morning.

The White House has repeatedly diverted questions about the process to the Justice Department, where Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to handle investigations into document handling.

But the administration came Under scrutiny for the slow drop of disclosure to the public about their findings.

The president’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s attorneys “respect the established norms and limits necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation and the importance of public transparency where necessary. I tried to strike a balance between

“These considerations necessitate avoiding public disclosure of details related to an investigation while the investigation is ongoing,” Bauer said, noting that regular disclosure would impair the agency’s ability to obtain new information or He added that there was a risk of incomplete information as the situation developed.

Biden said he was surprised to find classified documents from his time as vice president, and has repeatedly said he takes the government’s handling of classified material seriously.

The president has said the garage at his home is locked, and at one point suggested that some of the documents may have been found in his personal library.

The appointment of a special counsel to look into the matter means there will be two special counsel looking at how the last two presidents have dealt with classified material. but, their cases are different in a significant way.

In November, Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee an investigation into former President Trump’s handling of classified documents. Federal officials found hundreds of classified documents at Trump’s Florida home last year.

The FBI raided the property last August after Trump and his team spent months obstructing the investigation and refusing to provide documents requested by the National Archives.