Classified documents from Biden vice presidency surface at think tank, sparking inquiry: Report
Ryan King
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Classified documents from President Joe Biden’s vice presidency reportedly surfaced at a Biden-aligned think tank and triggered an investigation from the Justice Department.
About 10 documents from his vice presidential office were located by Biden’s lawyers on Nov. 2, before the midterm elections, at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The discovery prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to task the U.S. attorney in Chicago to investigate the matter, CBS reported.
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“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told CBS in a statement. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives.”
After discovering the materials, Biden’s legal team informed the president. The documents are now believed to be held in a secure location, according to the report. The Penn Biden Center was founded in 2018 and is located roughly a mile from the White House. The think tank has a foreign policy bent and is associated with the University of Pennsylvania.
Biden’s lawyers informed the National Archives and Records Administration of those documents a day after identifying them while packing up content from a closet in order to vacate an office space, Sauber explained. Under the Presidential Records Act, all presidential and vice presidential documents must be relinquished to the National Archives.
“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,” Sauber added.
Sources did not divulge the level of classification or nature of the documents to CBS. It was not clear how the classified material wound up at the think tank, but the U.S. attorney in Chicago is expected to investigate that.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, who was tapped by Garland to examine the matter, was appointed to the post by former President Donald Trump, who has been embroiled in his own classified document debacle with the government.
National Archives officials visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in January of last year to recover 15 boxes of material that were supposed to have been turned over via the Presidential Records Act. Upon reviewing the material, officials discovered scores of documents with classified markings and referred the matter to the DOJ.
Prosecutors at the DOJ commenced an investigation that led to the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago to confiscate additional classified material. They are weighing whether obstruction of justice or violations of the Espionage Act transpired. Garland has since appointed Jack Smith as special prosecutor to oversee the DOJ’s investigation into the document saga and a separate inquiry into Trump revolving around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
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Government officials amassed over 300 documents with classified markings and thousands of pages worth of material from Trump. Biden publicly rebuked Trump in response.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, Justice Department, and National Archives for comment.