US

Potentially classified documents found at Biden think-tank office

White House says it is co-operating with review of records that appear to be from the administration of Barack Obama

US president Joe Biden. His lawyers discovered 'a small number' of classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank last autumn, the White House said on Monday. Photograph: Pete Marovich/New York Times

Lauren Fedor and Stefania Palma in Washington
Tue Jan 10 2023 - 09:40

The White House said it was co-operating with the US department of justice and the National Archives after the discovery of potentially classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice-president at a think-tank office in Washington.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a statement late on Monday that the president’s personal attorneys discovered the documents in early November when packing up an office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.

The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think-tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, opened in 2018. The centre released a statement after the 2020 presidential election saying it would operate “completely independent” of the Biden administration.

Mr Sauber said Mr Biden had “periodically” used the office space where the documents were found from about 2017 until he began his 2020 campaign for the presidency.

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Mr Sauber said the documents “appear to be Obama-Biden administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings”. Mr Biden served as vice-president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.

The special counsel said Mr Biden’s personal attorneys found the documents on November 2nd last year, and the White House notified the National Archives on the same day. Mr Sauber added the documents were “not the subject of any previous request or inquiry” and that Mr Biden’s personal attorneys had since been co-operating with the National Archives and the DoJ.

CBS News reported that US attorney general Merrick Garland had assigned the US attorney in Chicago to review “roughly 10″ documents. The FBI is also involved in the probe, according to CBS.

The department of justice declined to comment and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US federal law requires that any official records created or received by the president or vice-president during their time in the White House be handed over to the National Archives when they leave office.

The law has been in the headlines in recent months after FBI agents carried out a raid over the summer at Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

That search uncovered more than 100 documents marked classified, secret or top secret from his time in office. Court filings show Mr Trump faces a criminal investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act as well as obstruction of a judicial inquiry and the mishandling of public records. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023

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