White House: Classified documents found at Biden's Delaware home from his time as vice president
This comes just days after it was disclosed that sensitive documents were also found at the office of his former Washington institute, as ITV News Correspondent Robert Moore reports
Documents with classified markings from US President Joe Biden's time as vice president have been found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House said on Thursday.
This comes just days after it was disclosed that sensitive documents were also found at the office of his former Washington institute.
Richard Sauber, a special counsel to the president, said a “small number” of documents with classified markings were found in a storage space in Biden's garage in Wilmington, with one document being located in an adjacent room.
The now President Biden had served as vice president under Barack Obama for eight years.
Sauber said the Department of Justice was “immediately notified” after the documents were found and that department lawyers took custody of the records.
A special counsel appointed to investigate
US attorney general Merrick Garland announced that Robert Hur, the former Trump-appointed US attorney for the district of Maryland, will lead the investigation.
Mr Hur will take over from the top Justice Department prosecutor in Chicago, John Lausch, who was earlier assigned to the case.
"The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter," Mr Garland said, adding that Mr Hur is authorised to investigate whether any person or entity violated the law.
"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law," Mr Garland said.
Following his appointment, Mr Hur said: "I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgment.
"I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favour and will honour the trust placed in me to perform this service."
Documents found in former Washington office
On Monday the Justice Department said that it was reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Biden’s former institute.
Mr Sauber said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Centre - where the president had kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017, until shortly before he launched his presidential campaign in 2019.
Mr Sauber added the documents were found on November 2, 2022 in a “locked closet” in the office.
Attorneys immediately alerted the White House Counsel’s office, who notified the National Archives and Records Administration - which took custody of the documents the next day, Mr Sauber said.
“Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives," he said.
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