President weJoe Biden confirmed, last Tuesday (10), during a trip to Mexico, that he was not aware of the content of the secret documents that were found in an office he used when he was vice president, in the government of Barack Obama.
“I don’t know what the documents contain,” Biden told reporters after the North American summit alongside his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Biden declared himself amazed at the discovery, which was made at a think tank in Washington, and secured cooperation in clarifying the issue.
The president’s lawyers discovered the documents in November in a locked safe during a cleanup at the Ben Biden Center, which is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and turned them over to the National Archives, which manages such materials, said Richard Sauber, a special counsel to Biden. .
“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice,” Sauber said in a statement, describing the discovery as “a small number of documents that have been marked classified.”
“The documents were not the subject of any solicitation or prior request,” he explained, and since they were found, Biden’s attorneys have cooperated “to ensure that records of the Obama-Biden administration are in the possession of the archive.”
The White House is concerned about the issue
The White House faced vigorous questioning last Wednesday (12) over the discovery of classified documents allegedly lost by President Biden – an issue complicating the investigation into A similar scandal involving former President Donald Trump.
The media reported that Biden aides discovered “at least one additional tranche” of documents. So far, the White House has confirmed the discovery of a “small number” of classified documents – apparently about a dozen.
The latest disclosure ensures that the story will not end quickly, with unexpected consequences for the future of a similar case involving former President Trump, who kept a large number of documents in the home he lives in in Florida after leaving the White House, in 2021. .
While the Trump case is more serious — the FBI has recovered about 11,000 documents during searches, which could make him obstruct justice charges — the Biden case is, to say the least, embarrassing for a president who boasts of high moral standards.
Trump pressed on the Truth Social website: “When will the FBI search the many Biden residences, including the White House?”
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Despite acknowledging that mistakes had been made, the White House announced that the Biden administration had, at least, acted immediately to rectify the situation.
In addition, attorneys for Biden are tracking the possible location of other misplaced documents, the office added, which could explain the recent discovery of new documents.
In an effort to defuse allegations of political interference, Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned a Chicago federal prosecutor appointed during the Trump administration to review the Biden documents — a very different response from Trump, who has not cooperated with authorities’ attempts to recover misplaced missing persons. Documents, which led to the FBI operation.
White House spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre avoided answering questions, saying she could not comment because the Justice Department is investigating Biden’s documents. “We’ll limit ourselves to what we can say here.”
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