On Wednesday, January 11, the legal team of US President Joe Biden reportedly discovered an additional batch of documents containing classification markings. The classified documents have been found in a separate location from the Washington office Biden used after leaving the Obama administration. However, it is not yet clear when the documents were found and what was the level of classification.
This comes days after President Joe Biden’s special counsel confirmed on Monday (local time) that classified documents from his time as US Vice President were discovered in a private office space and turned over to the National Archives in November 2022.
The White House confirmed earlier this week that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings” discovered at the office. Biden’s attorneys discovered the documents at the Penn Biden Center’s offices and immediately notified the National Archives, according to the White House. Biden maintained an office there after stepping down as Vice President in 2017 until shortly before launching his presidential campaign in 2019.
The additional classified documents were discovered by Biden’s attorneys comes just hours after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre evaded questions about President Biden’s handling of classified information and the West Wing’s handling of the discovery. She stated that the White House was committed to handling the matter in the “right way,” citing Biden’s personal attorneys’ prompt notification of the National Archives.
Jean-Pierre was asked by CBS News’s reporter Ed O’Keefe and others about why it took over two months after the discovery of classified documents in November to reveal it to the people of America. It was also questioned that the White House not revealing this to the public has anything to do with the upcoming elections. To this, Jean-Pierre claimed that it is “under review by the US Department of Justice.”
The revelation about the mishandling of classified documents by Joe Biden comes after Biden in an interview in September last year had claimed that his predecessor Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents was “totally irresponsible.”
It is pertinent to note that in 2021, Trump was asked by National Archives and Records Administration to return 15 boxes of records which were eventually returned in January 2022. The National Archives had noted that some of the items contained in those boxes were marked as “classified national security information.”
The Department of Justice is investigating Trump for his handling of classified information, though Trump has claimed that presidents can declassify documents “even by thinking about it.”
