Biden vows full cooperation with classified documents probe

Washington, Jan 12 (EFE).- United States President Joe Biden said Thursday that an ongoing investigation will answer all of the questions arising from the discovery of classified documents at one of his residences in Delaware.

“We’re going to see all this unfold, I’m confident,” he told reporters at the White House hours after his lawyers said that classified materials from Biden’s time as vice president in the 2009-2017 administration of President Barack Obama were found in the garage of the chief executive’s home in Wilmington.

The lawyers and investigators from the Department of Justice (DoJ) searched the residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach after classified documents turned up at an office in Washington that Biden used between his tenure as vice president and the launch of his campaign for the presidency in 2020.

Biden was asked about the latest discovery after delivering prepared remarks about the economy.

Challenged by a reporter to explain why he kept classified documents in the garage alongside his Corvette, the president replied: “My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So, it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”

“People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously,” Biden said.

DoJ launched an investigation after the first trove of documents was found in the office at the Penn-Biden Center in Washington.

Though that discovery took place in early November, it only became public last week.

“As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents … from my time as vice president were stored, and they finished the review last night. They discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library,” Biden said Thursday.

During the White House daily news briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address why the administration waited so long to disclose the matter of the documents found at the Penn-Biden Center.

“This is under review by the Department of Justice. I’m not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday,” Jean-Pierre said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland could decide to appoint a special counsel to look into Biden’s handling of classified documents, as he has already done regarding the materials recovered from former President Donald Trump’s residence in Florida during a search by the FBI.

Democrats stress that DoJ resorted to an aggressive approach toward Trump because the Republican mogul failed to return official documents that he had no right to have removed from the White House.

But the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives is demanding the appointment of a special counsel for the Biden case in the interest of fairness.

“It has to be equal,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday.

EFE pem/dr