Several classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall in a private office, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. A source told CNN that the National Archives has notified the Department of Justice of further investigation.

The law obliges officials of federal positions to give up official documents and secret files after the end of public service, reminds CNN.

Former President Donald Trump found himself at the center of a similar federal investigation after FBI agents last year found thousands of official documents, some of which were marked “secret” or “secret,” at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Trump’s tenure in the White House.

Joe Biden’s lawyers found the government documents in November 2022 when they closed the Washington, D.C., office that Biden used in his dealings with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an emeritus professor from 2017 to 2019, a source told CNN. .

It is about 10 classified documents that were found in Biden’s office, the source said. It is unclear what the documents are about and why they were delivered to Biden’s personal office.

Biden was vice president in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017

CBS News first reported the discovery of these documents. According to CBS, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked the Chicago Attorney General to review classified documents that have been turned over to the National Archives.

The classified materials included some top-secret files called “sensitive classified information,” abbreviated SCI, which is used for highly classified information obtained from intelligence sources, CNN writes.

After discovering the documents, Biden’s lawyers immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which began an investigation into the matter, the source said. Biden’s team cooperated with NARA, which later acknowledged the situation was a mistake for not taking adequate steps to protect the documents, a source told CNN.

The reaction of the White House

“The White House is working with the National Archives and the Department of Justice to identify documents similar to those of the Obama-Biden administration, including a small number of classified documents,” said Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president. in the application.

“The documents were discovered when the president’s personal lawyers were packing files into a locked cabinet in preparation to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC. The president used the facility intermittently from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign. On the day of this discovery, November 2, 2022 (a few days before the midterm elections, no), the White House counsel’s office informed the National Archives. The archive took possession of the materials the next morning,” the special adviser to the president said in a press release.

“These documents were discovered by the president’s lawyers,” Sauber emphasized. “The documents were not the subject of any prior request or investigation by the Archives. Following this discovery, the president’s personal attorneys worked with the Archives and the Department of Justice in the process to ensure that all documents from the Obama and Biden administrations are properly in the archives,” the special adviser to the president added.

Last May, the White House hired Richard Sauber to help the Biden administration respond to possible future investigations if Republicans regain their majority in Congress in the midterm elections, as they did in the House. Sauber, who at the time was the most important lawyer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, began his work in the White House as a “special adviser to the president.”

Trump’s advantage

However, the discovery of the materials comes in the context of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into former President Donald Trump’s possible mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida. As part of their investigation, federal investigators seized at least 325 classified documents from Trump.

Since the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago last August, Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations of mishandling of government documents by his predecessors. News of classified files emerging from Biden’s private office is likely to give new impetus to Trump, who has already announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, while Joe Biden is expected to announce his decision early this year.

Biden criticized Trump when he saw photos taken by the FBI showing a series of documents found on Trump’s property last summer.

“How could this happen? How could anyone – whoever it was – be so irresponsible?”. – said Biden. “I was thinking about what data is out there that could compromise sources and methods. I mean the names of the people who helped or… etc… are totally irresponsible,” Biden commented.

Keeping secret information after an official has left the public service does not necessarily entail criminal liability. The FBI found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept classified material on her private email server for years after she left the State Department in 2013. FBI investigators concluded that it was negligence, not intent, reports CBS News.

What is the Penn Biden Center?

The Penn Biden Center organization offers the University of Pennsylvania, which is based in Philadelphia, an office in the nation’s capital.

Joe Biden used the organization’s office space from mid-2017 until the spring of 2019, when he announced his candidacy for president.

Opened in 2018, the think tank hosts academic programs and events dedicated to foreign policy.

The Center’s sixth-floor offices are located right at the base of the Capitol, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering panoramic views of Congress, CBS News reported.

The Center’s staff is largely made up of former Obama administration officials, many of whom left the Center to later serve in the Biden administration. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for example, was the Center’s managing director in 2018. Steve Ricchetti, now a senior adviser to Joe Biden in the White House, served as the Center’s managing director in 2019.

The University of Pennsylvania named Joe Biden the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice in 2017 and paid him $917,643 to speak and direct the Benjamin Franklin Center between 2017 and 2019, according to the president’s financial records. For the time being, he has suspended his activities at the university, being on leave.

Joe Biden’s ties to the University of Pennsylvania run deep. His late son Beau and granddaughter Naomi received their bachelor’s degrees from this university. Biden’s daughter, Ashley, earned her master’s degree at Penn, and his granddaughter, Natalie, is currently studying there.

When Biden was vice president, he launched the Obama administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2016.

The president discussed how he handles classified information at home during a question-and-answer session with reporters last August. “I have a hidden camera at home that is fully secured. I’m taking it home today (the president’s daily file). It’s sealed. I have one person with me – a military man. I read it, locked it and give it to the military,” the president said. Asked if it was appropriate for the president to bring classified material home, Biden said: “It depends on the document and how secure the room is.”