Attorneys for President Joe Biden have found more classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, than previously known, the White House acknowledged on Saturday.
White House Attorney Richard Sauber said in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s private library. The White House had previously said that only a single page was found there.
The latest revelation is beyond discover of documents found in December in Biden’s garage and in November at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, from his time as vice president. The apparent mishandling of classified documents and official Obama administration files is being investigated by a former US attorney, Robert Hur, who was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday. Year.
Sauber said in a statement Saturday that Biden’s own attorneys, who do not have a security clearance, stopped searching after finding the first page Wednesday night. Sauber found the remaining documents on Thursday, while he was facilitating the Justice Department’s retrieval of them.
“While I was passing it on to DOJ officials traveling with me, five additional pages with classified markings were discovered in the document with it, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said. “The DOJ officials accompanying me immediately took possession of them.”
Sauber has previously said that the White House is “confident that scrutiny would reveal these documents were inadvertently lost and that the president and his attorneys acted upon the discovery of the error.” .”
Sauber’s statement did not explain why the White House waited two days to provide an updated account of the number of classified documents. The White House has faced scrutiny for waiting more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of the original group of documents at Biden’s office.
Asked on Thursday if Biden could ensure that additional classified documents would not appear in a subsequent search, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. member, “You should assume it’s done, yes.”
Sauber reiterated Saturday that the White House will cooperate with Hur’s investigation.
Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, said his legal team has “tried to balance the importance of public transparency with the established standards and limits necessary to protect integrity of the investigation.”
In the past, the Department of Justice imposed a high legal barrier before bringing criminal charges in cases involving the mishandling of classified information, with the requirement that someone intends to break the law. law rather than merely being careless or negligent in doing so. The main act governing the illegal removal and storage of classified documents makes it a crime to “intentionally” remove classified documents and store them in an unauthorized manner.
The circumstances involving Biden, at least so far known, differ from a separate investigation into the mishandling of classified documents at the private club and residence of former President Donald Trump in New York. Florida.
In Trump’s case, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating whether anyone tried to obstruct their investigation into secret record keeping at the Palm Beach estate. Justice Department officials say Trump representatives failed to fully comply with subpoenas demanding the return of classified files, prompting agents to return home with search warrants so they could collect them. add documents.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report
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