SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 24 April 2024, Wednesday |

Biden’s counsel finds five more classified pages at president’s Delaware home

Five more pages with classified markings were found at U.S. President Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home on Thursday, according to the president’s legal counsel, who stated on Saturday that they were immediately turned over to Justice Department officials.

Biden’s special counsel, Richard Sauber, stated that he visited Biden’s Wilmington residence on Thursday to expedite the handover of a paper with classified markings that had been discovered there earlier to the Justice Department.

“While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them,” Sauber said in a statement.

Biden’s legal team acknowledged this week it had found classified documents relating to his time as vice president in the Obama administration at his Delaware home, including some in his garage.

Other sensitive documents were previously discovered by his assistants at his home and a Washington think group he was affiliated with. On Thursday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel to look into the situation.

In a tweet sent out early on Saturday, the Republican House Judiciary Committee questioned, “How many more sensitive documents will they find at Joe Biden’s house?”

According to Sauber, Biden’s attorney took “prompt and voluntary action” to turn over all of the discovered materials to the appropriate authorities.

Biden is spending the weekend at his Wilmington home with his wife, Jill Biden, who underwent surgery on Wednesday to remove skin lesions from her face and chest.

Biden was asked by a reporter on Thursday about the wisdom of storing important material next to his Corvette. The self-declared ‘car guy’ president said both were in a locked garage.

“It’s not like they’re sitting out in the street,” he said. “People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously.”

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation on Friday into the Justice Department’s handling of improperly stored classified documents possessed by Biden, and questioned whether his son, Hunter, had access to any.

Republicans have sought to compare the investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents to the ongoing probe into how former President Donald Trump handled classified documents after his presidency.

The White House, however, says the two cases are different because Biden’s team has cooperated with authorities in their probe and had turned over those documents. Trump had resisted doing so until an August FBI search at his Florida home.

Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal lawyer, said in a statement that Biden had directed his personal attorneys to be “forthcoming and fully cooperative with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department regarding the documents.

“In addition, the president’s personal attorneys have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency where appropriate with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity. These considerations require avoiding the public release of detail relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing,” he said.

    Source:
  • Reuters