Biden aides find another batch of classified documents at different location: report
A second haul of classified documents belonging to President Biden have been located, a new report revealed Wednesday — two days after the White House admitted secret papers were kept at an office the commander-in-chief used after leaving the Obama administration.
NBC News reported the new documents were found at a separate location from the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, where an initial tranche of 10 sensitive files — some of them marked “top secret” — were retrieved on Nov. 2, 2022.
It was not immediately clear when or where the second group of documents were found, when they date from, and what level of classification they have been given.
The first batch of 10 documents included intelligence memos and other materials concerning Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, CNN reported Tuesday. The papers were dated between 2013 and 2016 and mixed in with Biden family documents, including details on the funeral arrangements for the president’s late son, Beau.
Biden made his first public comments about the matter Tuesday during a news conference in Mexico City, saying he was “surprised” to learn that records from the Obama White House had been found at his office in the Penn Biden Center — which he used for almost two full years after leaving the vice presidency.
“I don’t know what’s in the documents,” the president said. “My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes, they’ve turned over the boxes to the [National ]Archives, and we’re cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon, and there’ll be more detail at that time.”
Chicago US Attorney John Lausch, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, reportedly has submitted a preliminary report on the documents to Attorney General Merrick Garland. It is not clear whether Lausch only reviewed the documents recovered from the Penn Biden Center or whether he had access to any other documents that may have been found.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected further questions about the scandal, citing what she called the “ongoing process.”
At one point in the briefing, which took place just before the report emerged that additional documents had been found, Jean-Pierre was asked: “There are no assurances that you can provide at this point that there are no other classified documents out there in any other office and/or home?”
“Again, this is an ongoing process, so I’m going to let the process continue,” Jean-Pierre said. “It is being reviewed by the Department of Justice, and I’m just going to leave it there.”
Privately, an administration official told The Post that the White House was reluctant to shed more light on the document issue because “anything you say could potentially f— up” the Justice Department review by appearing to influence the process.
While Democrats and Biden allies have tried to absolve the 80-year-old president of wrongdoing by claiming that the documents were immediately turned over to the National Archives upon their discovery, that does not explain why the papers were allowed to leave the White House and be kept out of federal custody for almost six full years.
It’s also unclear what the lawyers who found the documents at the Penn Biden Center were looking for or why they were clearing out an office that apparently sat unused for more than three years. It’s also not known where else the documents may have been kept before the Penn Biden Center opened in February 2018.
The latest on President Biden’s classified docs scandal
- Biden calls classified docs ‘stray papers,’ blames aides who packed up White House office
- Hunter Biden’s shady biz partner handled transfer of Joe’s Senate papers to Delaware
- National Archives blocked from revealing Biden classified docs find by WH or DOJ: source
Republicans, meanwhile, have expressed outrage at the difference in treatment of Biden and former President Donald Trump, 76, who is under a federal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith for storing classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving office in January 2021.
“If you believe a special counsel’s necessary to assure the public about the handling of classified documents by Donald Trump, you should apply a special counsel to the mishandling of classified documents by President Biden when he was vice president,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News.
“The idea of prosecuting President Trump for mishandling classified information after this has gone down dramatically.”
“Special counsel,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) reacted to the latest report on Twitter Wednesday.
“How many classified documents did this guy have?” asked the House GOP’s official Twitter account.
“‘Totally irresponsible,'” quipped House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), referring to Biden’s comment about Trump’s retention of documents in a Sept. 18 “60 Minutes” interview.
“Did the @FBI raid the Biden Center?” asked the House Judiciary Committee, a reference to the Aug. 8 sweep that removed dozens of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.
“No one is buying the White House is telling us the truth,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) tweeted succinctly.
In addition to the DOJ and FBI investigation, the House Oversight Committee is launching its own investigation into why the initial discovery — which came six days before the midterm elections — was not made public at once.
with reporting by Steven Nelson