According to some sources President Joe Biden’s legal team uncovered other documents with classified marks a second time. The news comes only days after the president’s attorney stated Biden’s lawyers uncovered a “limited quantity” of sensitive documents in his previous office space in Washington. (https://flucamp.com/)
The White House acknowledged earlier this week that the Department of Justice was looking into “a small number of documents with classified markings” discovered at the office. According to the White House, Biden’s attorneys discovered the documents at the Penn Biden Center’s offices and immediately notified the National Archives. After leaving the vice presidency in 2017, Biden maintained an office there until soon before launching his Democratic presidential candidacy in 2019.
Biden’s legal team discovered additional classified material at a second site
According to a person who talked with the AP on Wednesday, Biden’s legal team discovered additional classified material at a second site. The individual was not authorized to discuss the delicate topic publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The individual did not specify when or where the material was discovered, nor did he provide specifics on the degree of classification of the documents.
The discovery of further classified materials by Biden’s attorneys occurred only hours after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre skirted questions about Biden’s handling of sensitive information and the West Wing’s handling of the finding. She stated that the White House was dedicated to handling the situation “correctly,” citing Biden’s personal attorneys’ prompt contact with the National Archives.
She would not say when Biden was briefed, whether there were any more classified documents potentially located in other unauthorized locations, or why the White House waited more than two months to reveal the discovery of the initial batch of documents, which were discovered Nov. 2, days before the midterm elections.
“As my colleagues in the Counsel have stated and said to all of you yesterday, this is an ongoing process under the review of the Department of Justice. So we are going to be limited on what we can say here,” Jean-Pierre said.
The White House and Justice Department both declined to comment on allegations
The White House and Justice Department both declined to comment on allegations about the second collection of classified records on Wednesday. NBC News broke the story first.
According to another individual familiar with the case, the Justice Department is evaluating the records discovered at the Penn Biden Center, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has instructed John Lausch, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, to evaluate the matter.
That person, too, was not authorized to speak publicly about the situation and talked to the AP on the condition of anonymity. Lausch is one of the few remaining US attorneys from former President Donald Trump’s administration.
Regardless of the outcome of the Justice Department investigation, the revelation that Biden may have mishandled classified or presidential records could be a political headache for Trump, who has called Trump’s decision to keep hundreds of such records at his private club in Florida “irresponsible.”
Biden has stated that he was “surprised to hear that there are any government records that were moved there to that location,” but his lawyers “did what they should have done” by calling the National Archives right away.
The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has asked the US intelligence agency to do a “damage assessment”
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a Republican, has asked the US intelligence agency to do a “damage assessment” of potentially secret documents.
The discovery may further complicate the Justice Department’s decision on whether to charge Trump, a Republican who is running for re-election in 2024 and has often alleged that the department’s investigation into his actions amounted to “corruption.”
There are substantial contrasts between the Trump and Biden situations, particularly the gravity of the continuing Mar-a-Lago grand jury inquiry.
