“A small number” confidential documents dating from the time of Joe Biden’s vice-presidency were found in his private residence in Wilmington, the White House said on Thursday, January 12. The President of the United States assured “cooperate fully” with American justice during a brief exchange with the press.
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“I signed a document appointing Robert Hur as special prosecutor” who “authorizes it to investigate any person or entity that may have violated the law” in this case, announced shortly after the Minister of Justice Merrick Garland.
Documents in the garage of one of his houses
Following the discovery of a dozen such documents in a former office of Joe Biden in Washington, his lawyers inspected his two private residences, where archives “could have been transferred during the 2017 transition”explained in a press release the lawyer of the presidency, Richard Sauber.
They found “a small number of additional documents dating from the Obama-Biden administration and classified as confidential”which were in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and an adjoining room, he said.
No documents were found in his residence in the seaside town of Rehoboth, in this state on the east coast, added Richard Sauber.
According to him, these documents “were inadvertently moved”. “We are confident that a careful investigation will show […] that the President and his lawyers acted promptly when they discovered this error”said Richard Sauber in a second press release.
McCarthy demands an investigation
Republican leader McCarthy, newly elected “speaker”, called on Congress to investigate. “Congress must investigate this case”he told the press, denouncing “a new misstep by the Biden administration”.
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The revelations are embarrassing for the Democratic president, with authorities investigating his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s handling of his own presidential archives for months.
The federal police had carried out a spectacular search in August of the private club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where the billionaire has lived since his departure from the White House. The FBI had seized thousands of documents, including a hundred classified defense secrets. A 1978 law obliges American presidents and vice-presidents to transmit all their e-mails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.
