Classified documents from President Biden’s tenure as vice president, discovered at his think tank’s office, are under review by a U.S. attorney in Chicago.
Attorney General Merrick Garland charged the U.S. attorney with investigating the records, which were located at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. two sources aware of the situation told CBS News.
The roughly ten documents were found at the think tank’s Biden vice-presidential office in early November, when Biden’s lawyers “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told the outlet.
The FBI is reportedly engaged in the investigation, CBS confirmed. The National Archives has since acquired the confidential materials, Sauber said.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber said. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
All presidential and vice-presidential records must be transferred to the National Archives under the Presidential Records Act.
Garland tapped U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to determine how the records ended up at the think tank after Biden’s tenure as vice president. Following the review, which is expected to yield a report, Garland can appoint a special counsel to escalate the investigation if warranted.
The Penn Biden Center situation comes after the FBI raided with a search warrant former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence months ago on the grounds that he mishandled documents the government claimed as its property and that should have been delivered to the National Archives.
During a September appearance on “60 Minutes,” Biden said of the trove of documented retrieved from Mar-a-Lago: “How that could possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible. And it just — totally irresponsible.”