At least a dozen confidential documents from current U.S. President Joe Biden’s time as Vice President during the Obama Administration were found in November in a private office of the President when they were supposed to be in the hands of the National Archives.
Biden’s lawyers found classified government before the midterm legislative elections in the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, a private entity of the president attached to the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an honorary professor between 2017 and 2019, CBS has reported.
In total, at least ten confidential documents would have been accounted for, although it is not clear what they are about or why they were in Biden’s private office and not in the custody of the National Archives.
U.S. federal officeholders are required by law to relinquish official documents and classified records when their government service ends. However, they can request them under a waiver, although this was not the case, according to the network.
Meanwhile, on the day of this discovery — specifically Nov. 2, 2022 — the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives, which took possession of the materials the next morning and notified the Justice Department of the incident for an investigation.
«The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,» Biden aide Richard Sauber has detailed in remarks to CNN.
«The documents were discovered as the president’s personal attorneys were packing up files housed in a locked cabinet in preparation for vacating office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington. The president periodically used the space from mid-2017 through the start of the 2020 campaign,» he added.
As detailed by Sauber, the documents «were not the subject of any prior request or consultation by the Archive.»
These events take place months after FBI agents raided the Mar-a-Lago Florida residence of former President Donald Trump to seize classified documents of his presidency that remained in his custody without permission from the competent authorities.
Among the documents collected by federal agents during the raid on the Mar-a-Lago residence in August were some confidential files that would even describe a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
