President Joe Biden claimed on Tuesday he doesn’t know what documents were discovered at his former private office from his time as vice president, stressing he’s surprised that confidential records were kept there at all.
Asked about the issue during the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico, Biden said that he was surprised to learn during the briefing about this discovery and even more surprised that there were government records taken to that office, noting, however, he doesn’t know what’s in the documents.
Documents that included some top-secret files marked as “sensitive compartmented information” – also known as SCI –used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources, were discovered in a private office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement that Biden used periodically from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 campaign.
Biden stressed that he takes seriously classified documents and classified information, adding that his lawyers immediately called the Archives and turned the documents there, offering at the same time full cooperation.
Biden was using the office while being an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania and documents surfaced in November when Biden’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet, Biden’s special counsel confirmed.
After reports that the White House was cooperating with the Justice Department regarding a review of documents found in a University of Pennsylvania office in Washington that once belonged to Biden between his time as vice president and his 2020 presidential campaign.
Under the Presidential Records Act, both the president and vice president are required to turn over documents to the National Archives for secure storage.
The reports of classified documents discovered in former Biden’s office immediately drew comparisons to the FBI search and seizure of classified documents at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property and energized at the same time the new House Republican majority, which has already announced launching a host of investigations into the Biden administration.
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