CBS News: secret documents from Biden’s vice presidency discovered in Washington

Classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as U.S. vice president were found on the premises of a think tank named after him in Washington, reports CBS News.

“Sources say about ten documents came from Vice President Biden’s office at the center,” the network reported.

The materials were discovered by Biden’s confidants on the eve of the midterm elections in early November, according to the report. The president’s proxies were sorting through things to vacate an office at the Biden Penn Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The documents were reportedly kept in a folder with other papers that did not contain classified data.

According to the report, the national archive was then notified, to which the materials were handed over. The TV channel stresses that, according to sources, Biden’s lawyers initiated the transfer of the materials themselves, the documents were not the subject of inquiries or investigations.

Now, Justice Secretary Merrick Garland has instructed the U.S. attorney for the Northern District to find out how the classified papers ended up on the premises of the expert center, the report says. Biden himself learned about the documents when they were reported to the White House by his lawyer, the president, however, does not know about the content of the papers, the sources of the TV channel indicate.

Biden was vice president in Barack Obama’s administration from 2009 to 2017.

Possession of secret documents was the reason for the search at the estate of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Law enforcement officers came to his Mar-a-Largo estate in Florida in early August last year as part of a case of illegal use, theft and destruction of official materials. Law enforcement officials seized thousands of documents, including various levels of secrecy, all the way up to the highest level. Trump disagreed with the investigative procedures and criticized the actions of the Justice Department, saying they were politically motivated.