The U.S. Department of Justice is searching President Joe Biden‘s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Wednesday amid the news that Biden kept classified documents from his time as vice president to President Barack Obama, according to a statement from the president’s personal attorney.
“Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney, said in a statement Wednesday.
“Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer added. “The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today’s search.”
Biden’s attorneys found classified documents at the former vice president’s office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and at the president’s residence in Rehoboth Beach. Classified documents dating from Biden’s time in the U.S. Senate have also been discovered.
Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped John Lausch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to investigate the document retention. It remains unclear where Biden kept the documents later discovered at the Penn Biden Center. Biden left office on Jan. 20, 2017, and the center did not open until early 2018.
The FBI searched the Penn Biden Center last November.
Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told CBS News that personal attorneys for Biden found the documents Nov. 2, six days before the midterm elections. The classified documents reportedly appeared in a box with other unclassified papers.
Sauber said that the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives of the documents on the same day lawyers discovered them, and the National Archives took possession of the documents Nov. 3.
“Today’s announcement that the FBI is searching Biden’s beach home highlights the urgent need for Biden and his administration to be forthcoming with the American people and members of Congress about the factual circumstances surrounding his retention of classified documents,” Zack Smith, legal fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)
“So far, we don’t know what was contained within those documents, why he retained them, or who had access to them,” Smith added. “The administration has even refused to provide most of this basic information to members of Congress in a classified setting. The American people deserve better.”
This is a breaking story and may be updated. Article cross-posted from Daily Signal.
