Five more pages of classified documents were discovered in President Biden’s Delaware home this week, the White House admitted Saturday — adding further fuel to the furor surrounding his careless and “alarming” handling of government secrets.
The additional pages were found Thursday – hours after the White House acknowledged a single page of classified material had been found in Biden’s personal library, near the garage where he had stored other restricted documents dating from his time as vice president.
With the new discovery, a total of six classified pages have emerged from Biden’s Wilmington home — while the total number of sensitive documents found in the home’s garage and in the office of his DC think tank remains unknown.
White House special counsel Richard Sauber said he found the newly disclosed material in “a room adjacent to the garage” of Biden’s home when Department of Justice officials arrived to retrieve the single classified page.
“While I was transferring it to the DOJ 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 DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.”
Biden’s lawyers halted a search of the room Wednesday evening when the single classified page was found – because the aides who were conducting the sweep lacked security clearances to lay eyes on anything else they might find, Sauber said.
Republicans scorched the president over the slow-rolling scandal.
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
“Joe Biden and the Biden Crime Family are corrupt and significant threats to national security,” House Republican conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik told The Post.
“The fact that federal law enforcement looks the other way when Democrats like Hilary Clinton, Hunter Biden, or Joe Biden break the law while these federal agencies illegally target Republicans is why critical Congressional oversight is so sorely needed to deliver accountability.”
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, vowed “swift” action Saturday.
“President Biden’s three strikes against transparency will be met with swift congressional oversight,” Comer said. “The Biden White House’s secrecy in this matter is alarming.”
Former President Donald Trump quickly blasted news of the discovery to his followers in a fund-raising email that trumpeted “5 MORE CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS!”
“WHERE’S THE RAID?” Trump asked – still smarting over the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. “This is a clear DOUBLE-STANDARD, Friend, one that we cannot ignore,” he wrote.
The White House said Monday that Biden had mishandled classified documents from the Obama administration after a press report revealed that sensitive material had been found months before at Biden’s former think tank office in Washington.
A hush-hush DOJ inquiry into the initial document discovery – which was made in early November, before the midterm elections – did not spur an official search of Biden’s home or other offices, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Instead, DOJ investigators allowed the Biden team to conduct its own searches – which “moved more slowly than law enforcement expected,” the outlet reported.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former Maryland US attorney, as special counsel on Thursday to examine the matter – potentially endangering Biden’s planned 2024 re-election bid.
The glacial pace of new revelations even has some Biden allies crying foul.
“All of the sudden after the midterms and as folks are gearing up for 2024 these leaks come out?” asked Dem consultant Chris Coffey, CEO of Tusk Strategies. “It sure looks like politically motivated timing designed to stop President Biden, whether from Republicans or other enemies. Doubt it will work.”
On Friday, House investigators entered the fray, as new Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanded that Garland hand over“all documents and communications” regarding the DOJ’s probe.
Robert Bauer, Biden’s personal lawyer, defended the slow release of details on the document search in a statement, saying that the president’s legal team was trying to balance transparency and “the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity.”
“These considerations require avoiding the public release of detail relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing,” Bauer said.