The FBI raided President Joe Biden’s former private office in Washington in November after its team told the National Archives it had found classified documents there, according to a Justice Department official and another source familiar with the matter.

A Justice Department official told CNN that a warrant was not used to conduct the search, which was obtained with the consent of Biden’s legal team.

The White House and Biden’s legal team have not previously disclosed the November FBI raid, unlike the raid the bureau conducted earlier this month at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

This latest revelation raises further questions about how transparent the White House and Biden’s legal team have been about the government’s investigation into the president’s handling of classified documents, which is now being overseen by special counsel Robert Goure.

The search at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was part of an FBI “assessment” that the Justice Department described in a timeline released earlier this month, the official said.

In unveiling the timeline, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “On November 9, the FBI began an evaluation in accordance with standard protocols to understand whether classified information was improperly handled in violation of federal law.”

By the time the FBI began its assessment, which included a visit to the Penn Biden Center in November, all documents from the office had already been transferred to the National Archives, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

According to a former Justice Department official, the purpose of the visit was to make sure nothing was left in the office and to assess how documents were stored.

Biden’s team said it initially turned over the classified materials to the National Archives on Nov. 3.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the archives notified the FBI on November 4 of the discovery of classified material after examining four boxes of documents.

In addition to the four boxes, the source said, Biden’s team also transferred about three dozen boxes of unclassified material from an office at the Penn Biden Center to the archive as a precaution. Additional boxes containing all the documents left at the Penn Biden Center were turned over to the archives on Nov. 8, the source said.

(source: news.ro)