According to a new report, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering conducting additional investigations for classified documents at other sites linked to President Joe Biden.
Friday, federal agents located more classified documents at the 80-year-old president’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. Documents that were found dated from his time as vice president, as well as his time as a senator.
DOJ officials are now considering extending the sensitive documents search to other locations, reported CBS on Saturday, citing a source familiar with the ongoing investigation.
One possible location for documents would likely be the president’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, around 90 miles from his Wilmington home.
Biden’s personal attorney conducted an earlier search of the beachside property, but reportedly no classified documents were found.
President Biden spent the weekend at his Rehoboth Beach home as the FBI searched his Wilmington residence.
In November, Biden’s attorneys found classified documents in Biden’s office in the Washington, D.C., Penn Biden Center. More sensitive records were found in December and then earlier this month at several locations in his Wilmington home.
Merrick Garland, Attorney General, was named special counsel Robert Hur to investigate the president’s handling of classified documents. In November, Garland named Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor, to investigate President Donald Trump after classified documents were seized in a raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida by the FBI in August.
Location of more documents reinforces the seriousness of the investigation
The FBI’s search of President Biden’s home and the location of more classified material reinforced the severity of the controversy surrounding the secret documents and worsened the political fallout.
Biden’s lawyers maintain search shows cooperation with the investigation
The president’s lawyers maintained that Friday’s search underscores the extent of his cooperation with the special counsel’s investigation and shows the differences between the behavior of former President Donald Trump and his documents investigation.
However, the FBI conducting searches of a sitting president remains uncommon. For its part, the White House is seeking to downplay it.
The investigation brings new questions over why President Biden still retained classified documents from his tenure as vice president and how material considered sensitive ended up in his private residence. It is also being investigated whether records were safe from prying eyes in the years they were located there.
During the legal distinctions between the Trump and Biden cases, some voters may perceive both to be the broader issue of the classified documents kept by Trump and Biden. The current investigation into Biden may be a big break for Trump’s 2024 campaign since it appears to deflate one of Democrat’s most potent lines of attack against him.
