White House counsel reports finding further secret materials at Biden's Delaware home

Main Points

• The White House announced on Saturday that more secret government documents were discovered this week at President Joe Biden's Delaware home.
• Biden's special counsel announced in a statement that six pages of documents with classification marks had been found at Biden's home in Wilmington.

U.S. President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 13, 2023. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The White House announced on Saturday that more secret government documents were discovered this week at President Joe Biden's Delaware home.

Biden's Wilmington home was found to contain a total of six pages of documents with classification marks, according to a statement from Richard Sauber, senior counsel for the White House. Previously, the White House claimed that only one page had been discovered.

The next five records were found later that week, according to Sauber, after the first document was uncovered and turned up by Biden's personal attorney on Wednesday.

He stated in the statement, "The DOJ officers with me promptly seized ownership of them.

According to Sauber, the president's attorneys have provided the materials to the Department of Justice "quickly and voluntarily."

The latest discovery was made public just days after Sauber confirmed media reports that an initial batch of classified documents from the Biden administration was discovered on November 2 in an office that Biden had previously used as a private citizen at a Washington think tank by attorneys for the president.

That happened about three months after FBI investigators searched the Florida home of former President Donald Trump and took hundreds of other papers, including more than 100 secret government documents, according to federal prosecutors.

Because of his removal of the records from the White House in January 2021, Trump is the subject of a criminal investigation by the DOJ.

The discovery of a second set of documents in Biden's Delaware residence was made public by Sauber on Thursday. According to a statement he released, a "limited quantity" of papers with classified markings were discovered in the garage. He also described how and where the second batch of documents was discovered.

The second collection of documents was reportedly found in the garage of Biden's Delaware home on December 20, according to a statement made on Saturday by Bob Bauer, Biden's personal attorney. Beginning on Wednesday, the president's attorneys searched the house once more for additional classified documents and discovered the extra documents in a room next to the garage.

According to Bauer, Biden's private attorneys are attempting to strike a balance between openness to the public and the restraints required to "guard the integrity of the investigation."

According to Bauer, the lawyers lack security clearances, therefore they are unaware of the precise amount of documents or their contents. He claimed that anytime a lawyer came across a document marked as classified, they halted, informed the government, and did not review it.

According to Bauer, "following this process means that any disclosure involving documents cannot be final until the government has concluded its investigation, including taking possession of any documents and analyzing any related information for additional examination and context."

Government records must be legally transferred to the National Archives upon the resignation of a president or other members of their administration. Robert Hur, a former federal prosecutor, was named as special counsel on Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into the discovery of these secret documents.

Garland stated in a public statement he issued on the appointment at the Department of Justice that Hur has the authority "to examine whether any person or business broke the law in connection with this matter."

Biden talked about the documents with reporters shortly after the second discovery.

In reference to the documents, Biden stated, "As I indicated earlier this week, and by the way, my Corvette is in a closed garage, so it's not like they're hanging out on the street."

People are aware that I take seriously any classified documents or materials, Biden remarked. We are completely collaborating with the Justice Department's review, as I also stated.