US President, Joe Biden’s legal team found another batch of classified government records following the initial discovery of classified documents at his former office in Washington this past fall, NBC news says in a new report.
Classified records are supposed to be stored in secure locations. And under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives when an administration ends.
Searches for additional documents took place after Biden’s lawyers found the initial classified documents in early November, that effort led to the discovery of additional documents of interest to federal officials reviewing the matter.
The discovery of the classified documents in Biden’s former office in November set off alarm bells inside the White House, where only a small circle of advisers and lawyers were aware of the matter. An effort was launched to search other locations where documents from Biden’s time as vice president may have been stored.
A Wednesday, January 11 report
CNN reported that the initial batch discovered when Biden’s personal attorneys were packing files at his former private office contained 10 classified documents, including US intelligence materials and briefing memos about Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.
Some of the classified documents were “top secret,” the highest level. They were found in three or four boxes that also contained unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act.
It is unclear as at press time how many documents were in the second batch of documents or what the documents were about. It is also unclear exactly where the new batch of materials were located.
The documents were discovered on November 2, just six days before the midterm elections, but the president’s attorneys only publicly acknowledged the discovery of the documents on Monday when news reports about the discovery broke.
Biden said that he did not know that some classified documents had been taken to his private office after he had left the vice presidency and that his attorneys “did what they should have done” by immediately contacting the National Archives and Records Administration after the documents were found in November.
The documents, the president said, were found in “a box, locked cabinet – or at least a closet.”