The White House announced on Saturday that President Joe Biden’s lawyers discovered more secret documents at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware than was previously reported.
According to a statement from White House attorney Richard Sauber, Biden’s library was searched, and six pages of classified paperwork were discovered.
According to prior reports from the White House, only one page was found.
The most recent admission comes on top of the finding of records from Biden’s time as vice president that was found in his garage in December and at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington in November.
Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, is looking into the potential mishandling of sensitive information and official records from the Obama administration.
Biden’s attorneys, who lacked security clearances, ended their search on Wednesday night after coming across the first page, according to a statement from Sauber on Saturday.
On Thursday, Sauber discovered the remaining materials while assisting the Department of Justice in obtaining them.
“Five additional pages with classification marks were located among the paperwork with it, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said.
“I was passing it to the DOJ personnel with me.” The DOJ representatives who were with me instantly seized control of them.
According to Sauber, the White House was “confident that a careful examination will demonstrate that these documents were accidentally misplaced, and the president and his counsel acted swiftly upon knowledge of this error.”
The White House’s two-day delay in providing a revised tally of the number of classified records was not explained by Sauber’s statement.
The White House has already come under fire for delaying its announcement of the initial batch of documents found in Biden’s office by more than two months.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to a question about whether Biden could assure reporters that no further classified materials would surface in a subsequent search on Thursday by telling reporters, “You should presume that it’s been done, yeah.”
Sauber reaffirmed on Saturday that the White House would assist Hur in his inquiry.
The president’s attorney, Bob Bauer, stated that his legal team has “attempted to balance the importance of public transparency with the established norms and requirements where appropriate.”
Before filing criminal charges involving improperly handling classified material, the Justice Department has generally set a high hurdle, requiring proof that the offender meant to infringe the law rather than acting carelessly or negligently.
It is against the law to “knowingly” remove classified papers and store them unauthorized, according to the main act that governs such behavior.
As far as is currently known, the circumstances surrounding Biden are distinct from a separate inquiry into the improper handling of secret information at former President Donald Trump’s Florida mansion and private club.
Special counsel Jack Smith is looking into whether anyone attempted to hinder their inquiry into the retention of secret records at the Palm Beach residence in the context of Trump.
According to Justice Department officials, when a subpoena requesting the handover of sensitive data was not wholly complied with by Trump’s lawyers, investigators were forced to return to the residence with a search warrant to gather more evidence.
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