Joe Biden and the Classified Papers

Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.

John Lausch Jr., the US attorney in Chicago, has briefed Garland multiple times. No additional briefings are scheduled but would be conducted if necessary, a source said.

The classified documents were dated between 2013 and 2016, according to the source familiar. They were found in three or four boxes also containing unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act.

The vast majority of the items in the office contained personal Biden family documents, including materials about Beau Biden’s funeral arrangements and condolence letters, the source told CNN. It is not clear if the boxes with classified documents contained personal materials.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the US attorney in Chicago, a holdover from the Trump administration, to investigate the matter, CNN previously reported. Garland made this move after receiving a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration. 

The documents were discovered on November 2, just six days before the midterm elections, but the matter only became public Monday due to news reports.

The source told CNN that a personal lawyer for Biden was closing out the downtown DC office that Biden used as part his work with the University of Pennsylvania. The lawyer saw a manila folder that was labeled “personal,” opened the envelope and noticed there were classified documents inside. The lawyer closed the envelope and called NARA, the source said. 

After making contact with NARA, Biden’s team turned over several boxes in an abundance of caution, even though many of the boxes contained personal materials, the source said.

Biden said Tuesday that he did not know that some classified documents had been taken to his private office after he had left the vice presidency and that his attorneys “did what they should have done” by immediately calling the National Archives.

“I was surprised to learn there were any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question at a news conference in Mexico City, where he was attending a trilateral summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

The documents, the president said, were found in “a box, locked cabinet – or at least a closet.”

Source: edition.cnn.com