WASHINGTON: Thursday, US President Joe Biden gave Americans the assurance that he would fully cooperate with the investigation into the finding of classified documents from the Obama administration’s personal files.
However, the US media warns that the administration’s efforts to hold former president Donald Trump accountable for stealing secret documents would be hindered by the discovery.
His lawyers confirmed that they discovered a second set of classified documents in Mr. Biden’s garage in Wilmington, Delaware, just minutes before his speech at a White House event.
“Classified material, in front of your Corvette — what were you thinking?” asked a journalist after Mr. Biden’s speech was over. The documents, according to Mr. Biden, were kept “not sitting out in the street” in a locked garage. My Corvette is locked away in a garage.
He assured the nation that he would fully cooperate with the investigation and stated that people were aware that “I take classified material seriously.”
In November, the Penn Biden Centre, a think tank near the White House that Mr. Biden was a part of, found the first set of about ten documents. However, CBS broke the shocking news on January 10 and added that the trove contained approximately two dozen classified documents.
Richard Sauber, the president’s Special Counsel, stated shortly after the second discovery: A storage area in the President’s Wilmington residence garage contained all but one of these documents. In an adjacent room, among the stored items, one page-long document was discovered.
The second set was discovered “among personal and political papers a small number of additional Obama-Biden Administration records with classified markings,” according to the statement.
President Biden stated that the documents found at his residence would be given to the Department of Justice during his appearance at the White House. “They finished the review last night, my lawyer has reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president were stored,” he stated.
They discovered a small number of classified documents in my personal library and storage areas and file cabinets. In the case of the Biden Penn Center, this was done. The Department of Justice was informed right away. Additionally, the lawyers made arrangements for the Department of Justice to acquire the documents, he stated.
The US media reported, citing sources from the White House, that the files found at these two distinct locations included memos from US intelligence and were related to his time as vice president under Barack Obama.
In the US, admittance to ordered records is restricted by regulation to individuals with unique authorisation and just the president, the VP and bureau level authorities approach them.
The first discovery was called a “political headache” by the US media, while the second was called a “major embarrassment” for the Biden administration, which is suing Mr. Trump for similar charges.
Over 13,000 government documents were uncovered when the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, residence on August 8, 2022. Along with top-secret US operations, some of these documents describe the nuclear capability of a foreign military.
However, CBS, the organization that made the Biden discovery, stated that these documents did not contain any nuclear or other types of secrets.
According to the Washington Post, the two cases have “key differences” that “could heavily factor in whether the Biden documents become a criminal matter.”
For instance, the president’s lawyers discovered the Biden documents and voluntarily gave them to the authorities. However, Mr. Trump was only permitted access to those documents when served with a subpoena from a grand jury requesting their return.
According to the New York Times, the discovery was “sure to intensify Republican attacks on the president, who has called Mr. Trump irresponsible for hoarding sensitive documents at his estate in Florida.”
The “Biden document scandal eats away at efforts to hold Republicans accountable” was noted by CNN.
