A number of classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as Vice President were found in a private office last year, as acknowledged by Biden’s attorneys on Monday.
The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has asked the US Attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., to investigate the incident, according to a source familiar with the matter. Congressional Republicans are also taking an interest in the discovery.
Biden’s lawyers stated that they found the government documents in November while closing a Washington D.C.-based office, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which Biden used in his role as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2019.
It is unclear how many classified documents were found or what they pertain to, but it is known that federal office holders are required by law to hand over official documents and classified records upon the end of their government service.
The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in regards to the discovery of the documents, which appear to be from the Obama-Biden Administration and include a small number of documents with classified markings.
The classified materials also included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” (SCI) designation, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.
Biden’s team immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) upon the discovery of the documents and cooperated with their investigation, which later concluded that the situation was a mistake due to a lack of safeguards for the documents.
In November, NARA made a referral to the Justice Department to further examine the matter.
