FBI agents under the orders of the United States Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office have spent hours searching President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware, in case he keeps more classified documents there.
The search, which began early this Wednesday, had been scheduled for weeks following the discovery of a total of four batches of secret papers in the hands of the president: first in the office that he opened six years ago at the Penn Biden Center ( Washington) after his time as Barack Obama’s vice president, and later at his home and garage in Wilmington, Delaware.
“Today, with the full support and cooperation of the President, the Department of Justice is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” the president’s attorney, Bob Bauer, said in a statement this morning.
The investigation, it continued, is being carried out “in accordance with standard procedures” of the Department and “in the interest of operational security and integrity.”
Despite the fact that the search in all Biden’s properties not yet registered had been announced days ago, the lawyer stressed the fact that the specific date of the investigation had not been specified. “This work was wanted to be done without prior public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” he said.
Biden’s first papers appeared at the Penn Biden Center in Washington on November 2, that is, eight days before the midterm legislative elections. But the White House did not communicate it until January, specifically two months and eight days later. Later came the finds at the Wilmington house and garage, with further if less glaring delays in communication.
US Attorney General and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on January 12 the appointment of a special prosecutor, veteran and conservative Robert Hur, to oversee the investigation and study all classified papers found in private U.S. Biden, around thirty in total so far.
The discovery of the documents that the president kept -according to him without knowing it- offered Donald Trump and the Republicans valuable ammunition with which to counterattack him against the accusations of obstruction of justice and inappropriate handling of classified material that weigh on the former president.
The case of Trump, whom the FBI had to search his house in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) to confiscate the more than a hundred secret papers he hid there, is supervised by another special prosecutor, Jack Smith.
On January 24, the appearance of classified documents was also made public in the house that former vice president and Trump’s last number two, Mike Pence, has in Indiana.
