The investigators for the Department of Justice have found over six documents, including classified ones, during the 13-hour search undertaken at US President Joe Biden's home in Delaware, his lawyer has said.
A statement by Biden's personal lawyer Bob Bauer said some of the documents seized from his Wilmington property on Friday include those from his days as a senator from 1973 to 2009. The others were from his stint as the Vice-President under Barack Obama. The "personally handwritten notes" and "surrounding materials" were taken away.
Neither Biden nor first lady Jill Biden was present during the search, but the President’s personal and White House lawyers were in attendance at the time.
The search was conducted on the invite of his lawyers. "Yesterday, D.O.J. completed a thorough search of all the materials in the president’s Wilmington home. It began at approximately 9:45 a.m. and concluded at around 10:30 p.m. and covered all working, living and storage spaces in the home," Bauer said on Saturday. "The D.O.J. had full access to the president’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades," he added.
Bauer's statement did not mention what triggered the search. However, it mentioned the Justice Department's request that the search not be made public before it was carried out, in accordance with its standard procedures.
The discovery of classified documents from Biden's home, the fourth since November, is poised to become a legal and political hurdle for the President. The search also hints at how seriously the Justice Department is handling the issue amid former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that Biden was being treated differently.
The FBI had conducted an extensive search last year at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and they reportedly found over 150 documents marked as classified from the residence.
The access road to President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware | AP
This isn't the first time that classified government records are being discovered from the President's home. The documents were first discovered by Biden’s lawyers on Nov. 2 at a private office that he kept at a Washington, D.C., think tank. However, the White House waited for two months before disclosing the information to the public.
More documents were discovered from thegarage of Biden’s Wilmington home on Dec. 20 and Jan 11. Further searches revealed more records in a room adjacent to Biden’s garage, when investigators traveled there to take possession of the single page found the prior day.
The lawyers quickly turned the documents over to the National Archives and, later, to the Department of Justice.
