The Justice Department is reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the Washington office space of President Joe Biden's former institute, the White House said Monday.
Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber said "a small number of documents with classified markings" were discovered as Biden's personal attorneys were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where the president kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in 2019. The documents were found on Nov. 2, 2022.
Sauber said the attorneys immediately alerted the White House Counsel's office, who notified the National Archives and Records Administration — which took custody of the documents the next day.
"Since that discovery, the President's personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives," Sauber said.
A person who is familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly said Attorney General Merrick Garland asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department. John Lausch was appointed to his post by former President Donald Trump.
Trump recently came under fire after the FBI discovery of a trove of documents, many with classified markings, at Mar-a-Lago, The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation.
For his part, Trump has said, among other things, that it is not uncommon for documents to be taken. He said his predecessor, Barack Obama, kept millions of pages of documents, some surely sensitive and relating to nuclear arms.