Lawyers for President Joe Biden have discovered additional documents with classified markings in a storage space in the garage of his Wilmington, Del., residence, the special counsel to the president announced Thursday.
The lawyers found the Obama-Biden administration records during a search completed Wednesday night of Biden’s residences in both Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Del. All but one of the documents were found in a storage space in Biden’s Wilmington garage, with one other record found in an adjacent room, Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber said in a statement.
“As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously,” Biden said following remarks on the economy and inflation Thursday, just after the news broke of the additional documents being discovered. “I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review.”
It’s the second batch of documents marked classified discovered in a space used by Biden since the end of the Obama administration. The previous set, found at a Biden-affiliated think tank on Nov. 2 and publicly disclosed earlier this week, triggered the broader search and a move by the Justice Department to scrutinize the discoveries.
“As we stated previously, we are fully cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in possession of the Archives,” Sauber said in the statement.
Biden’s special counsel said the lawyers conducted the review at the president’s Delaware residences, where additional documents might have been shipped during the presidential transition in 2017 following the discovery of the documents at the Penn Biden Center in November, coordinating closely with the Justice Department in the search.
DOJ was immediately notified after the discovery of the documents in Wilmington, Sauber said, and Biden’s lawyers arranged for the government to take possession of the records. He added that the White House will continue cooperating with DOJ’s review.
Biden contended on Thursday while answering reporters’ questions following his speech that the documents were at least partially secure because they were in a locked space.
“By the way, my Corvette’s in a locked garage, okay?” he said, responding to a reporter’s question about why he’d store documents next to his Corvette. “So it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.”
Former President Donald Trump made similar claims after the discovery of classified records at Mar-a-Lago, noting that he put a lock on the door where the documents were housed and that his estate was protected by the Secret Service. But both measures fell short of the requirements for safeguarding national security secrets.