Lindsey Graham Doubts There is Anything ‘Sinister’ about Biden’s Mishandling of Classified Docs

Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) came to President Biden’s defense on Tuesday, days after a fourth trove of classified documents was discovered in the president’s Wilmington, Del., home. Graham told reporters on Tuesday that he stands by his support of a special-counsel investigation into the documents, but offered an endorsement of Biden’s character.

“Let me just say this: I’m known President Biden for a long time,” Graham said. “I’d be shocked if there’s anything sinister here.”

However, in an interview with Fox News, Graham questioned why Biden’s attorneys “sat on” information about the first trove of documents that was discovered days before the midterm elections. “If you come to my house, you’ll find Chick-fil-A bags all over the floor, but you’re not gonna find any classified information,” Graham said.

Graham told reporters that he has the same questions for Biden that he does for former president Donald Trump, whose residence at Mar-a-Lago was searched in August as part of an investigation into allegations that he had mishandled documents that the government claimed as its property and over which the National Archives claimed authority.

The FBI uncovered the Biden documents, some of which trace to his time as a senator, during a search on Friday. This came after a set of classified records from Biden’s time as vice president were first recovered by Biden’s lawyers on November 2 at the Penn Biden Center, according to a statement from the lawyers. The center served as Biden’s private office from 2017 to 2019, after his time as vice president came to an end. The White House Counsel’s office searched Biden’s homes in Delaware earlier this month and discovered two additional sets of documents with classified markings, including in a storage space in Biden’s Wilmington garage.

Graham’s comments about Biden and Trump came as former vice president Mike Pence notified Congress on Tuesday that he discovered classified documents from his time in the Trump administration in his Indiana home on January 16.

Meanwhile, Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said he could not understand how classified documents from Biden’s time as a senator could turn up at the president’s home.

“The process we go through is so elaborate . . . that I can’t understand how any individual senator can take possession of a classified document, let alone remove it to another location,” Durbin told CNN. “It’s just unthinkable, and the time I’d been in the Senate . . . it’s never happened, and I can’t explain how it happened here.”