FBI conducts 'planned' search of President Joe Biden's home
February 1, 2023
US federal investigators found no classified documents after searching US President Joe Biden's beachfront home in Rehoboth, Delaware, on Wednesday, his lawyer said.
The search came after classified documents were found at the president's home in Wilmington, Delaware as well as at the offices of a Washington-based think tank he had connections with.
"Today, with the President's full support and cooperation, the [Department of Justice (DOJ)] is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware," Biden's lawyer Bob Bauer said according to CNBC.
"No documents with classified markings were found," he later added.
Biden has voluntarily allowed the FBI to search his residences and his lawyers have reached out to the DOJ after they themselves found classified documents.
Rehoboth is the third location to be searched as part of the probe into missing classified documents.
Ongoing investigation
"Under DOJ's standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,'' Bauer said in a statement.
"The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today's search."
The first documents came to light in November when the Penn Biden Center — a think tank affiliated with Biden and the University of Pennsylvania — closed its office in Washington DC. The files found dated back to Biden's time as vice president.
Further classified documents were subsequently found in Biden's residence in Wilmington during a search instigated by his personal lawyers following the discovery in the think tank office.
Further documents were later found by the FBI when they carried out their own search.
Comparisons between the findings in connection to Biden and the large stash of classified documents that were discovered in ex-President Donald Trump's Florida Home, Mar-o-Lago, following an FBI raid, have been widely rejected as unfounded.
The DOJ has appointed special counsels in both cases to run independent investigations, however, the White House has said with Biden the documents were accidentally stored incorrectly while Trump allegedly resisted handing over the documents he had taken.
Documents have also been found at the home of former Republican Vice President Mike Pence who has accepted responsibility for it. The National Archives — which is supposed to store all classified documents — has reportedly called on former presidents and vice presidents to check for any documents that they may have taken with them upon leaving office.
ab/nm (AP, AFP, Reuters)