FBI searched Biden home, found additional documents marked classified

Zeke Miller and Mike Balsamo, The Associated Press

Published Saturday, January 21, 2023 8:01 pm EST

Last updated Saturday, January 21, 2023 8:49 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday and found six other documents with classified markings and also took possession of some of his notes, the president’s attorney said Saturday.

The documents seized by the FBI spanned Biden’s time in the Senate and vice presidency, while the notes were from his time as vice president, said Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney. He added that the search of the entire site took nearly 13 hours. The level of classification and whether the documents removed by the FBI remained classified was not immediately clear when the Justice Department reviewed the records.

The extraordinary search followed more than a week after Biden’s attorneys found six classified documents from his vice presidential days in the president’s home library, and nearly three months after attorneys found a “small number” of classified records in his former offices at Penn Biden had center in Washington. It came a day after Biden claimed that “there is nothing” about the document discoveries that have sparked a political headache as he prepares to launch a re-election bid and undermine his efforts, to the American public in the wake of the turmoil image of decency to convey presidency of his predecessor Donald Trump.

“We found that a handful of documents were misplaced,” Biden told reporters in California on Thursday. “We immediately turned them over to the archives and the Department of Justice.”

Biden added that he is “fully cooperating and looks forward to resolving this quickly.”

The President and First Lady Jill Biden were not at the home during the search. They spent the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Whether further searches by federal officials will be carried out in other locations remains to be seen. Biden’s personal attorneys previously conducted a search of the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they found no official documents or classified records.

The Biden probe has also complicated the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office. The Justice Department says Trump took hundreds of marked records when he left the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government, and that she had to obtain a search warrant to retrieve them.

Bauer said the FBI asked the White House not to comment on the search before it was conducted and that Biden’s personal and White House attorneys were present. The FBI, he added, “had full access to the President’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules and memories dating back decades.”

The Justice Department, he added, “took possession of materials it deemed pertinent to its investigation, including six items consisting of documents with non-disclosure markings and surrounding materials, some from the President’s Senate service and others from his.” tenure as Vice President.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland US Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate possible wrongdoing related to the Biden documents. Hur is set to replace Trump-appointed US Attorney John Lausch in Illinois overseeing the investigation.

“The President made a commitment from the start to be responsible about this because he takes this seriously,” White House Attorney Richard Sauber said on Saturday. “The President’s attorneys and the White House Office will continue to work with the DOJ and the Special Counsel to ensure this process is conducted quickly and efficiently.”

The discoveries of the Biden document and the investigation into Trump, which is in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith, differ significantly. Biden has made a point of working with the DOJ investigation at every turn — and Friday’s search was voluntary — though questions remain about his transparency with the public.

For a criminal offense to have been committed, an individual would have to “knowingly remove” the documents without authorization and intend to keep them in an “unauthorized place”. Biden said he was “surprised” that classified documents at the Penn Biden Center were uncovered.

In principle, classified documents must be released after a maximum of 25 years. However, some records are so valuable that they remain secret for much longer, although certain exceptions must be granted. Biden served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware contributed to this report.