US files: Six More Classified Documents Seized at Biden’s Home

By Selin A

As of late, it appears that the US department of Justice (DoJ) have been spending more time on President Joe Biden’s property than Biden himself. Although Biden may want to venture into the Air B&B business, the DoJ were not looking for a place to stay when they conducted a 13-hour search of his home in Delaware a week ago. In fact, they were looking for classified documents, six of which they found.

However, this was not the first search of Biden’s property to happen In January, Biden’s lawyers established that a ‘first batch’ of classified documents had been found on 2nd November at the Penn Biden Centre, a think-tank Biden founded in Washington DC (BBC). This was just days before the midterm elections. A second array of files was found on the 20th December, at his Wilmington home, and a third on 12th January in the garage of this home yet another document was found(BBC).

Although these classified documents only came to light recently, it has been established that some are from Biden’s time as vice-president under Barack Obama, and some from his time as senator.

Earlier on, a similar issue faced the Republican ex-president Donald Trump, as allegations of the ‘mishandling of hundreds of classified documents’ came to light. Trump refused to hand over these documents until the FBI had to raid his Florida residence to retrieve them The Florida Mar-a-Lago was also yet to be listed for Air B&B usage. Additionally, the former vicepresident under Trump, Mike Pence, held classified documents in his house in Indiana. It seems that illegally holding classified documents on private property has become the new bleached eyebrows among politicians.

These actions are all classified as being illegal, as under the Presidential Records Act, White House records should go to National Archives, post-administration. They should not be kept on private property. However, Biden allowed access to a search of his property for ‘potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material’ said lawyer Bob Bauer in a statement on Saturday, displaying Biden’s cooperative nature in the face of the allegations against him. Nevertheless, BBC North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher claims that the classified documents pose ‘awkward questions for the president about transparency’.