White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre refused Wednesday to answer reporters’ questions about classified documents discovered in Biden’s offices during his time as vice president, maintaining that the president’s lawyers «did the right thing» by turning the papers over to the National Archives.
Jean-Pierre, in a press conference, has insisted that there is an ongoing review by the Justice Department leaving open questions such as who brought the documents to the office — whether Biden was surprised that they were there — or when the president was informed of their discovery.
Such materials would have been discovered on November 2, 2022, six days before the midterm congressional elections, by the president’s lawyers. However, this was not made public until this Monday, two months later, when the CBS television network reported it.
It is unknown why the president’s personal lawyers were at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, where the first batch of documents reportedly were found.
Jean-Pierre has not answered why Biden’s lawyers went to the office, in case it was a routine moving activity, or if, on the contrary, they were going through the documents looking for something specific.
Doubts have also been raised about the safety of finding new files in any other location, whether office or residence, where Biden worked during that time, fearing for the scope of the situation.
Also, the administration’s transparency, one of Biden’s strong promises during the election campaign against former President Donald Trump, regarding state secrets, is being questioned.
This situation has also provoked criticism from the Republican Party, which is denouncing a «double standard» by the White House, in reference to the open investigation against Trump, who resisted to hand over classified documents, so that the FBI raided his mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
«The kind of double standard that we see practiced by the Biden Administration in the wake of this incident at the Justice Department I think is exactly what undermines public confidence in our justice system,» said former Vice President Mike Pence.
The legal team of the former president, who had more than a hundred documents seized, including some top secret ones in private properties, believes that he will benefit from the Biden case, who for the moment has allegedly kept a dozen papers in an office.
Hours earlier, another batch of classified documents appeared in a location other than the office of the current president of the United States. As reported by NBC, Biden’s aides have reviewed documents stored in other places near his former office in Washington, although it is not known at the moment what kind of classified material they have found and the number of documents.
Biden himself previously insisted that he does not know what is contained in the documents that have been found in his Washington office when he was an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania. However, he assured that he is «cooperating fully» with the process.
According to sources contacted by CNN, the classified documents include U.S. intelligence memos and information materials on Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom. In total, at least ten confidential documents 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.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
