After discovering secret materials at his Delaware home and a Washington, D.C. office, Vice President Biden is now the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice.
A White House lawyer announced on Saturday that five more pages had been discovered at Biden’s residence, making a total of seven different locations where they were discovered.
Former Justice Department officer Robert Hur was named Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to head the department’s investigation.
“This appointment emphasises for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive situations,” Garland said Thursday.
A week before the November midterm elections, the DOJ announced their initial investigation into the finding of sensitive materials in Vice President Joe Biden’s private office.
During the course of their federal investigation, the special counsel will search Biden’s home and private office.
The White House has claimed that it has worked with the DOJ throughout its review and will continue to do so during special counsel Hur’s investigation.
A White House lawyer, Richard Sauber, said in a statement, “We are sure that a thorough assessment will establish that these records were mistakenly misplaced, and the president and his lawyers moved swiftly upon learning of this mistake.”
What we know about the Biden papers at the moment is as follows:
On four instances, confidential documents were uncovered at Biden’s private residence and a D.C. office he used before becoming president.
In early November of last year, Biden’s private attorneys were preparing to move files from the Washington office he had set up for his work at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank established by the University of Pennsylvania.
A “closed closet,” as the White House put it, contained sensitive documents that had no business being there. They were sent to the National Archives to be preserved.
The following day, on November 4th, the Department of Justice was notified by the inspector general of the National Archives of the discovery. By mid-November, Garland had selected John Lausch, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Chicago, to conduct an evaluation of the papers.
Biden’s personal counsel, Robert Bauer, alerted Lausch on December 20 that more papers had been discovered in Biden’s private house garage in Wilmington, Delaware. The FBI was able to swiftly obtain those records.
On January 11. During a search of Biden’s house in Wilmington, investigators discovered a single secret paper.
On Thursday, the White House described the review as being over. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “The search is concluded.”
On Saturday, however, White House lawyer John Sauber said that on Thursday, while working with DOJ authorities to pass over what he had described as the final page of classified material, he discovered five additional pages at Biden’s Wilmington home.
