President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was surprised to learn that classified documents were found in the think tank office he once used.
However, Biden said he and his team are fully cooperating to verify what happened.
Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada that he was serious about classified documents. He said that he did not know what was in the documents.
“We are fully cooperating with the review, which I hope will be completed soon,” Biden said.
Democrat Biden has faced criticism from Republicans after his Justice Department launched last year an investigation into former Republican President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The cases differ in several ways.
Biden’s lawyers found less than a dozen classified documents in the think tank’s office and reported it to the US National Archives, handed over the materials and said they were cooperating with the archives and the Justice Department.
Biden intermittently used the think tank’s office space from mid-2017, after his term as vice president of Democratic President Barack Obama ended, until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign.
By contrast, Trump kept thousands of government documents, several hundred of which were marked classified, at his Florida residence for more than a year after leaving the White House and did not immediately or voluntarily return them, despite numerous requests from the National Archives. .
When Trump finally handed over 15 boxes of documents in January 2022, the archives found that more than 100 of them were marked as classified. He later turned the case over to the Justice Department.
Investigators tried to force Trump to return all remaining secret tapes with a grand jury subpoena and a visit to his Mar-a-Lago estate.
During this visit, Trump’s advisers returned several dozen additional classified records and testified that no other classified material was left at the residence.
Suspecting possible obstruction of justice, the FBI requested and received court permission in August to search his Florida home, where agents found more than 13,000 additional records, about 100 of which are highly classified.
In November, US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate the case.
To prove a crime, investigators will need evidence that Trump or his associates knowingly and willfully retained the tapes and deliberately attempted to obstruct the department’s investigation in order to recover them.
Republican Representative Mike Turner of the House Standing Select Committee on Intelligence sent a letter asking U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes to “immediately review and assess damages” in the Biden documents case.
“This discovery of classified information could lead to President Biden’s potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act,” Turner said Tuesday.
Representative Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump ally who chairs the House Republican caucus, said in a statement that the documents raise serious national security questions. She called it “disturbing” that they were turned over to the National Archives shortly before the November midterm elections, “and Biden’s corrupt Justice Department covered it up for two months.”
Biden defended the handling of the documents.
“They found some documents in a drawer in a locked cabinet, or at least in a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized that there were several secret documents in this box. And they did what they had to do. archive,” he said.
“I was informed of this discovery and I was surprised to learn that there were some government records that were delivered there to this office, but I don’t know what is in the documents,” he said.
He said that his lawyers suggested that he not ask what was in the documents.
“I have handed over the boxes, they have handed over the boxes to the Archives, and we are fully cooperating with the review, which I hope will be completed soon. And then there will be more details,” he said. said.
