Washington Confidential US government documents have been discovered in the home of President Joe Biden in Delaware. The documents came from Biden’s time as vice president, the White House announced on Thursday.
The “small number” of documents were discovered in a storage area in Biden’s Wilmington garage, said Biden’s legal counsel, Richard Sauber. According to Fox News, the documents were stored “next to his Chevrolet Corvette”. A document was found in an adjacent room. For Biden, the situation is politically extremely sensitive, because his predecessor Donald Trump caused a scandal in the summer with a similar case.
Actually, Biden wanted to announce a success on Thursday, because the inflation figures in the USA fell again in December. In the White House, the US President spoke for about ten minutes about the domestic economy, the stable job market and positive growth. But the document affair overshadows everything, and dozens of reporters urged the president to comment on the new details.
“Secret materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?” asked Fox News journalist Peter Doocey. Biden paused for a moment. “Soon,” he explained, he’ll be “talking about all of this in depth.” Biden then said, “My Corvette’s in a locked garage, okay? So it’s not like it’s parked out on the street.” His team did “the right thing” and immediately informed the National Archives and the Ministry of Justice.
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It was only made public on Monday that Biden had kept secret documents from his time as US Vice President Barack Obama in his private offices in the Penn Biden Center in the capital Washington. The documents were discovered in November shortly before the midterm elections. The media finally made this public.
As a result, Biden employees searched other locations for government documents, the broadcaster CNN reported on the recent discovery. A second tranche was found.
Papers with the highest level of confidentiality
On Wednesday, the White House dodged critical questions about the first find, citing ongoing investigations by the Justice Department. Spokeswoman Karina Jean-Pierre did not answer questions during a news conference about who had brought the documents to Biden’s office.
The first find in November reportedly included at least 10 classified papers, some of which were top-class classified. Biden responded with surprise at the find. He does not know who brought the documents there or what they contained. At the same time, the Democrat promised “full cooperation” in the investigations.
In the US, government documents must be turned over to the National Archives. There are big differences in the classification of documents, writes the Washington Post in an analysis:
– The lowest level is therefore “confidential”. This information could cause “damage to national security” if disclosed.
– The next level up, according to the newspaper, is “classified” and flags documents that could cause “serious damage” to national security, such as significant military plans or intelligence operations.
– The highest level is therefore “top secret”. It can be assumed that disclosure of these documents would cause “extraordinarily serious harm” to national security, according to the Washington Post.
The discovery of government documents in his Florida home had caused a stir.
(Photo: AP)
The situation is reminiscent of a scandal surrounding Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, in whose private estate Mar-a-Lago several top-secret government documents were confiscated during an FBI search in the summer. Biden had sharply criticized Trump for this.
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