The US Department of Justice is reviewing potentially confidential documents from President Joe Biden’s time as Vice President found in the Washington offices of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The White House announced this on Monday.
Apparently “small number” of confidential documents found in former office
Special Counsel Richard Sauber said a small number of documents marked confidential were found when Biden’s personal attorneys cleared an office the president used from the end of his vice presidency in 2017 until well before the start of his presidential campaign in 2019. The documents were found on November 2, 2022.
Biden’s attorneys immediately notified the White House Counsel. He informed the national archive, which took over the documents the next day. Since the discovery, Biden’s personal attorneys have been working with the National Archives and the Justice Department to ensure that any documents related to the administration of ex-President Barack Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden are properly in the National Archives’ possession, Sauber said.
Investigators appointed by Trump should examine the process
A person familiar with the process said Attorney General Merrick Garland commissioned the review from US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, John Lausch, after the National Archives contacted the department. Lausch was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
First, the broadcaster CBS reported on the discovery of potentially confidential documents.
Parallels to the document find at Trump?
The find is particularly explosive in view of a similar recent case: investigations are being carried out into ex-President Donald Trump for taking secret government documents to his private property after leaving the White House. Trump could have made himself liable to prosecution. The FBI searched the Florida property in August and confiscated various classified documents, some with the highest level of secrecy. It is still unclear whether Trump could ultimately be charged.
With information from ap and dpa