Biden Aides Discover Additional Classified Documents at Second Location
White House has declined to answer why public wasn’t informed earlier about material found in November
WASHINGTON—President Biden’s aides have found additional classified documents in a second location beyond those discovered in November at a Washington office Mr. Biden used after his vice presidency, a person familiar with the issue said Wednesday.
It couldn’t immediately be determined where or when the additional documents were found. The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment about the second batch of records, which was reported earlier by NBC News. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
During Wednesday’s White House press briefing, before news of the new set of documents broke, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t answer questions about when the president was first briefed on the discovery of the documents, why the public wasn’t informed earlier and whether other classified documents were improperly handled.
“I know you all are going to have a lot of questions. I get that and I understand that, but I’m not going to go beyond the process that’s currently happening” at the Justice Department, Ms. Jean-Pierre said. Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch, with the job of reviewing what people familiar with the inquiry said were at least a dozen classified documents.
From there, Mr. Garland could decide to appoint another special counsel like the one overseeing an investigation of classified documents found at former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago home, one of the people said.
The discovery of another set of classified documents will intensify the political pressure bearing down on the president as the Justice Department determines how to handle the case of Mr. Trump, who has joined fellow Republicans in accusing Mr. Biden of hypocrisy on the issue.
Ms. Jean-Pierre said Mr. Biden’s lawyers did “the right thing” by turning over the documents to the National Archives after they were discovered in November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the president’s Washington-based think tank. “When it is appropriate for us to say more, we will,” she added, following questions from reporters about whether the lack of information undercut Mr. Biden’s pledge to be transparent with the public during his presidency.
Ms. Jean-Pierre also declined to say whether Mr. Biden used other offices in the period after he left the vice presidency.
Mr. Biden on Tuesday said he was briefed about the incident and was “surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.” The president said he doesn’t know and hasn’t asked what the documents contain. Ms. Jean-Pierre pointed reporters to Mr. Biden’s remarks.
Following a CBS News report, the White House on Monday confirmed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys discovered classified materials at the center more than two months earlier, on Nov. 2, and turned them over to the National Archives the following day.
The White House earlier this week declined to explain why the administration didn’t disclose the discovery of the documents sooner. “This is an ongoing process under review by DOJ, so we are going to be limited in what we can say at this time,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said. “But we are committed to doing this the right way, and we will provide further details when and as appropriate.”
Lawmakers from both parties have called for a full accounting of how the classified documents ended up in Mr. Biden’s think tank. Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the new Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the panel is opening an investigation into the matter. Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday that he expected to be briefed on the issue.
The revelation comes amid a separate Justice Department investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents. Agents in August seized more than 11,000 documents in a search authorized by a federal magistrate in Florida, including roughly 100 marked as classified. The decision by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to search Mr. Trump’s home in August came after a monthslong effort to get Mr. Trump’s team to relinquish the documents through less invasive means.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com
Appeared in the January 12, 2023, print edition as 'Biden Aides Find Classified Documents At Second Location'.