US President Joe Biden’s lawyers found new classified documents at his private Delaware residence that have not been returned to the National Archives. a The first set of documentsdating back to when Biden was vice president to Barack Obama, was found in November in the office of one of his study centers in Washington and its existence was only known .this week.
The second set of documents was found in the garage of Joe Biden’s private home and in his garage book shelf. Talk of the second discovery began on Thursday morning, and several hours later the White House confirmed it of its existence. Also on Thursday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland announce Hire a special counsel to investigate legal issues relating to the two.
in both cases “Documents marked as classified”, which belonged to the Obama administration: would therefore be covered by the US government’s secrecy restriction. Biden could not have kept her with him in a private office after leaving the vice presidency.
Besides the potential legal ramifications, the case is already a major political embarrassment for the current administration.
Former President Donald Trump is the subject of an investigation and possible criminal charge for the theft of twenty boxes with about a thousand classified documents, which were found after a search of his Florida villa. Trump investigation It concerned not only the presence of documents in the private residence, but also “obstruction of justice” and the suspicion of damaging sensitive materials. Biden had called his predecessor “irresponsible” for not returning the documents, and after announcing the first discovery, he said he was “surprised.”
The first discovery concerned a small number of documents, no more than ten, in the office For the Center for the Study of International Diplomacy founded by him and affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania,Ben Biden Center“, headquartered in Washington. They were found in a locked drawer by an employee who was vacating the office. According to press reports, the first set of documents will contain notes from the intelligence services and files on Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom. It’s not known exactly how many documents are the subject of the second discovery: It’s a “small number,” said Richard Sauber, a Biden aide.
Karen Jean-Pierre, a spokeswoman for the president at the press conference (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Biden said he was “cooperating fully” with Justice Department spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre at Wednesday’s briefing He does not want to answer For more questions on this topic. It is currently unclear where the president’s legal team found the new set of documents. The news was reported in various American media, but neither the Biden administration nor the Ministry of Justice wanted to confirm or comment on it.
Biden’s lawyers have outlined how the documents were automatically returned to the National Archives once they were found, underscoring differences with the Trump-related case, when the return was at the center of a legal case, unsealed by a search of the villa.
Legal experts consulted before Washington Post They argue that errors in the management of confidential documents are very common and are usually dealt with administrative rather than criminal penalties, unless the willingness to steal sensitive material is proven, as appears instead to have happened with Trump.
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