FBI ALSO searched the Penn Biden Center in November after President’s lawyers found 10 classified documents: More revelations come out despite White House claims of transparency
- The FBI searched Biden’s former office at DC think tank
- It came days after president’s lawyers identified classified material there
- White House has claimed ‘transparency’; agents searched Wilmington home
Investigators from the FBI searched the office that President Biden used to maintain at a DC think tank – days after his own lawyer identified classified material there, it was revealed Tuesday.
The White House and the Justice Department did not disclose the search, which was reported by CBS News, despite the White House’s claim of ‘transparency’ over the rolling discoveries of classified material.
It was not immediately known if any additional documents marked classified were uncovered during the search, which took place in mid-November.
On November 2, days before the mid-term elections, a Biden attorney discovered 10 documents marked ‘classified,’ then contacted the National Archives, which alerted the Justice Department. It comes as the Biden Administration is facing new pressure from Democrats to disclose the contents of classified material found at Biden’s home and office.
Investigators from the FBI searched the Penn Biden office for classified material back in November, it was revealed Tuesday
A January 14 statement from Biden lawyer Bob Bauer did not acknowledge the government search, only flagging the government’s ‘inquiry, including taking possession of any documents and reviewing any surrounding material for further review and context.’
On Friday, January 20, the FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home, uncovering additional classified material.
Top Republicans have called on the government to search Biden’s Rehoboth, Del. beach house, where Biden’s team says no classified documents were uncovered in its own search.
The search at the Penn Biden center came days after the document discovery there
The FBI carried out a search of Biden’s Wilmington home, where classified materials were discovered in a garage
The same garage is home to Biden’s classic Corvette Stingray – along with some boxes and a lampshade
The news broke as Biden visited New York to tout infrastructure improvements
Biden has faced repeated questions about the documents, sometimes scolding reporters, sometimes defending his conduct
The White House had fielded questions last week about such a search might happen this past weekend, when Biden was at Camp David and in Wilmington, but there are no indications it happened.
‘There has not been a limit of transparency,’ White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month during a particularly feisty White House press briefing.
The repeated disclosures come after months of reporting on former President Donald Trump’s own resistance to government demands to return documents – and the FBI’s discovery under a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago of hundreds of documents marked ‘classified.’
Former Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod is among prominent Democrats who have faulted the Biden White House for insufficient transparency, in an op-ed where he faulted the team for violating a mantra of crisis communications to ‘fully disclose all the facts’ as quickly as possible.
Bauer’s statement following the Wilmington search this month made clear that the Justice Department took part in the search.
DOJ ‘took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President,’ Bauer said in a statement at the time. He said investigators also took handwritten notes from Biden’s time as vice president.
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