OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats, have publicly announced that they turned over all classified documents to the National Archives and Records Administration when they left office.
“Consistent with the Presidential Records Act, all of President Obama’s classified records were submitted to the National Archives upon leaving office. NARA continues to assume physical and legal custody of President Obama’s materials to date,” Obama’s office said in an email.
“All of President Clinton’s classified materials were properly turned over to NARA in accordance with the Presidential Records Act,” a Clinton spokesperson told Fox News.
Earlier this month, sensitive documents were discovered in the garage of President Joe Biden’s Wilmington home as well as his think tank. There are also questions surrounding a lack of transparency on why the U.S. Secret Service apparently does not have any visitor logs from Biden’s Delaware home.
The Department of Justice is considering searching more locations for classified documents after a search of Biden’s Delaware home uncovered more classified material, CBS News reported.
“Justice Department officials are also considering the possibility of conducting other consensual searches at locations linked to Mr. Biden, said the source familiar with the investigation,” the report said.
“DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” the president’s personal attorney said.
The search was conducted over a 12-hour period on Friday with the approval of the president’s attorneys, unlike the raid on former President Donald Trump’s home, CNN reported.
Those six items are in addition to materials previously found at Biden’s Wilmington residence and in his private office.
The federal search of Biden’s home, while voluntary, marks an escalation of special counsel Robert Hur’s probe into the president’s handling of classified documents and will inevitably draw comparisons to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump – even if the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence was conducted under different circumstances.
The FBI five months ago obtained a search warrant to search Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, an unprecedented step that was taken because federal investigators had evidence suggesting Trump had not handed over all classified materials in his possession after receiving a subpoena to turn over classified documents to the National Archives. Trump’s handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago is also the subject of a special counsel investigation led by Jack Smith.
The search shows that federal investigators are swiftly moving forward with the probe into classified documents found in Biden’s possession. Hur, who was appointed a little more than a week ago, is investigating how the president and his team handled Obama-era classified documents that were recently found in Biden’s private possession.
The Justice Department has appointed Special Counsel Robert Hur to lead the investigation into Biden’s classified documents case.
An attorney for Mike Pence announced that he found classified documents at the Indiana home of the former vice president and has given them to the FBI.
“Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,” his attorney Greg Jacob said. “Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”
