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The Justice Department has turned to a Trump-era U.S. Attorney holdover to conduct the investigation into how President Joe Biden came to possess classified documents at a private office in Washington, D.C., he used in work on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania.
Reports this week noted that around ten classified documents were discovered in his office at the Penn Biden Center related to Ukraine, Iran, and the UK by a personal lawyer to Biden when he was closing out the office in early November, just days before the midterm elections. The lawyer reported the find to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Attorney General Merrick Garland has been briefed a number of times about the ongoing investigation into the matter by Chicago-based U.S. Attorney John Lausch Jr., one of the few holdovers from the presidency of Donald Trump. Lausch, the attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, was appointed by Trump in November 2017.
“The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to the White House, said in a Monday statement, according to Fox News. “Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
Fox News noted further:
The discovery echoes revelations last year that Trump had housed a trove of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving office. The FBI ultimately raided his residence to recover some 300 classified documents.
Trump himself was quick to make the comparison on social media Monday, and a number of other Republicans called for more information about the Biden documents.
“Why didn’t the ‘Justice’ Department announce the Highly Classified documents found in the Biden Office before the Election?” Trump asked on his Truth Social platform.
“Biden’s documents are HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL, many pertain to UKRAINE, where Hunter was ‘raking in the dough,’ and FUNDED BY CHINA, which gave $55 Million to Biden, through Penn, and probably had easy access,” he noted further.
Donald Trump Jr. also asked, “When will the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team storm one of Biden’s many vacation homes bought and paid for somehow by a lifetime of being a humble public servant?”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who served as White House physician during part of Trump’s administration, also asked similar questions.
“It’s just been discovered that Biden had HIGHLY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS that were improperly stored in one of his private offices. INCREDIBLE! WHERE is the FBI? WHERE is the dramatic raid? We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them and one for us,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice and National Archives have made compliance with the Presidential Records Act a top priority,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, noted as well in a Monday statement. “We expect the same treatment for President Biden, who has apparently inappropriately maintained classified documents in an insecure setting for several years.”
CNN added:
The classified documents were dated between 2013 and 2016, according to the source familiar. They were found in three or four boxes also containing unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act.
The vast majority of the items in the office contained personal Biden family documents, including materials about Beau Biden’s funeral arrangements and condolence letters, the source told CNN. It is not clear if the boxes with classified documents contained personal materials.
The Biden lawyer apparently discovered a manila folder labeled “personal,” and when he opened it, he noticed it contained some classified items. At that point, CNN said, citing a source, the attorney closed the folder and called NARA.
“After making contact with NARA, Biden’s team turned over several boxes in an abundance of caution, even though many of the boxes contained personal materials, the source said,” CNN reported.
