1 year ago
President Joe Biden’s legal team found additional classified documents in a second location associated with the president just days after it was revealed that secret papers were discovered in a different Biden office, a person familiar with the investigation said on Wednesday.
The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, did not say where or when the materials were found. The contents and nature of the documents were also not immediately known.
But the discovery will add to the scrutiny of Biden’s handling of sensitive government materials. Earlier this week, a lawyer for Biden said the president’s personal attorneys had discovered several classified documents in early November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a Washington think tank.
Biden’s lawyers notified government agencies, and the Justice Department opened an investigation to see how the classified material got there and whether there were additional documents elsewhere in Biden’s possession. The person familiar with the second discovery said those materials were also turned over.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the new set of documents. Earlier in the day, a White House spokeswoman declined to say whether additional materials had turned up in the searches.
Speaking about the first set of documents on Tuesday, Biden told reporters thathe didn’t know what was in the materials, and that he was “surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.”
The White House has repeatedly reiterated that it is cooperating with the Justice Department and that Biden’s lawyers promptly turned over the materials after finding them. The materials also weren’t found at a private residence — a significant contrast to former President Donald Trump, who had sensitive materials seized by the FBI from his Florida estate earlier this year.
Still, Republicans have been quick to draw a line between the two situations, with many insisting that Trump has been treated unfairly.
Shayna Greene contributed to this report.
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