WASHINGTON – FBI agents searched President Biden’s eponymous Washington think tank in mid-November, shortly after his attorneys found classified documents improperly stored there days before the midterm elections, according to a new report Tuesday.
The search of the Penn Biden Center, which was reported by CBS News citing two sources familiar with the investigation, has not previously been disclosed by the White House, Justice Department, or the president’s personal attorneys.
The president’s legal team had uncovered about 10 classified documents – some involving issues related to the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Iran – on Nov. 2 in a closet at the now-president’s abandoned office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
The material was from Biden’s time as vice president under Barack Obama, the White House has said. The FBI search was conducted without a warrant and in cooperation with Biden’s reps, according to CBS.
It’s unclear whether the FBI found any additional classified material in their mid-November search.
Advertisement
It took more than two months for the White House to own up to the Nov. 2 find after CBS reported on the discovery Jan. 9.
Since then, federal investigators have collected additional classified material dating back to Biden’s time as a senator from his Wilmington, Del. home and garage.
On Jan. 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former federal prosecutor Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate whether Biden or anyone in his orbit unlawfully mishandled sensitive government information.
Little is known about the contents of the documents – apart from the fact that some of them were marked “top secret.”
Lawmakers from both parties have demanded briefings about potential national security threats posed by the discovery of the classified documents, as well as those found during an August 2022 raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
