A review is currently being conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) after multiple classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.
According to ABC News, Richard Sauber, special counsel for Joe Biden, released a statement claiming that he and his team were the first to flag the documents for the DOJ and the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), reporting them to the agencies on November 2nd, the same day they were discovered; the government took possession of the documents by November 3rd.
“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records,” said Sauber, “including a small number of documents with classified markings.”
The documents were discovered as Biden’s attorneys were “packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space,” according to Sauber’s statement. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives.”
“Since that discovery,” he continued, “the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
The office in which the documents were found had been frequently used by Biden after he left office in 2017, up until he began his 2020 campaign, Sauber confirmed.
Such a discovery raises questions about Biden’s hypocrisy, after he ordered his DOJ to go after former President Donald Trump for allegedly possessing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The FBI carried out a controversial raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, earning widespread national and international condemnation for what was widely perceived as a politically-motivated attack on his rival and likely opponent in the 2024 election.