White House confirms second set of Biden documents found in his Wilmington garage
Washington — The Justice Department's review of documents with classified markings that were found at President Biden's home in Delaware and at an office established after his vice presidency has included interviews with multiple witnesses who may have knowledge of how the classified documents were handled, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The White House confirmed Thursday that a second group of records with classified markings dating from Mr. Biden's time as vice president was found in his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Biden confirmed the documents were in his "locked garage," where his Corvette is kept, and in his home library. Kathy Chung, who was Mr. Biden's executive assistant while he was vice president, was among those interviewed, a U.S. official confirmed.
CBS News reported Wednesday that additional material marked as classified had been identified at a location separate from the Penn Biden Center in Washington, where other documents were first discovered by the president's attorneys on Nov. 2.
Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special prosecutor, Robert Hur, to oversee the investigation into the documents. Garland had previously assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review the material found at the Penn Biden Center.
In a statement, Richard Sauber, a special counsel to the president, said Mr. Biden's lawyers searched his residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth, where files from his vice presidential office may have been shipped in 2017. That review was completed Wednesday night.
Sauber said a "small number" of additional Obama-Biden administration records marked classified were discovered in a garage in the president's Wilmington home, and another single document was discovered among material in an adjacent room. Mr. Biden's attorneys found no documents in the president's beach house in Rehoboth Beach. Sauber's statement said the Justice Department was "immediately notified" of the documents.
Sauber said the president and his attorneys are "fully cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in possession of the Archives."
Sauber issued an additional statement Thursday afternoon, after Hur's appointment.
"As the president said, he takes classified information and materials seriously, and as we have said, we have cooperated from the moment we informed the Archives that a small number of documents were found, and we will continue to cooperate," Sauber said. "We have cooperated closely with the Justice Department throughout its review, and we will continue that cooperation with the special counsel. We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake."
On Thursday, Mr. Biden reiterated that he and his attorneys are fully cooperating. The president said he will speak about this more, "God willing," soon.
"As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously," the president told reporters. "I also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department's review. As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents of — from my time as vice president were stored, and they finished the review last night. They discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas, in file cabinets in my home and my personal library."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday said he thinks "Congress has to investigate this."
"They knew this has happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public?" McCarthy said. "He goes on '60 Minutes,' criticizes President Trump, even knowing what he was done and he wasn't president at the time?"
The revelations about the Biden documents come as the Justice Department continues to review former President Donald Trump's presidential records. In August, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago that yielded more than 100 documents marked classified.
That search followed repeated efforts by the Archives and the Justice Department to retrieve what the government considered to be sensitive documents from Trump's personal residence that were required to have been turned over to the Archives under the law.
— Eleanor Watson contributed to this report
