WASHINGTON (AP) – The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home Wednesday as part of its investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents, the president’s personal attorney said.
The search, the third of a Biden site in less than two months, followed a 13-hour, top-to-bottom search on Jan. 20 of his Wilmington, Delaware, home, where agents located documents with classified markings and seized I also took some of his handwritten notes.
Wednesday’s effort, while expected after earlier searches at Biden’s Wilmington home and his former Washington office, was the latest inconvenient development for the president, whose classified material – considered a “mistake” by his lawyers – has brought his Efforts have been tarnished. Rule-abiding back to the White House.
It underscores how an investigation that has been quietly languishing for weeks continues to grow rather than fade away.
In a separate effort ahead of the Biden probe, special counsel Jack Smith is probing the retention of nearly 300 documents with classified markings by former President Donald Trump at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. The Justice Department said agents obtained a search warrant last August to recover the classified documents after months of resistance by Trump and his representatives to return the records to the government.
The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday’s finding.
It’s the latest following a Nov. 2 discovery of documents with classified markings by Biden lawyers — disclosed just last month — as he closed an office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank affiliated with the Ivy League school. Since then, the president has voluntarily allowed the Justice Department to enter his residences as investigators seek to determine how classified documents wound up in his home and office from Biden’s time as vice president and a senator.
In a statement acknowledging the discovery on Wednesday, Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer said the Justice Department had “initiated the new action without any advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate.”
“While the search today is another step in a thorough and timely DOJ process, we will continue to fully support and facilitate it. We will have more information at the conclusion of today’s search,” he added.
The FBI searched the Penn Biden Center in November after an initial search of documents by Biden’s lawyers, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Tuesday, and conducted its own search last month of the Wilmington property, to find out For what Bauer said six objects containing documents with classified markings.
It was not immediately clear whether any additional classified documents were found on Wednesday.
The Biden documents are being investigated by special counsel Robert Hur, the former top federal prosecutor in Baltimore. He begins his job this week, inheriting a months-long investigation already being conducted by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors.
Investigators have already conducted interviews, including a former executive assistant to Biden who helped oversee the packing of boxes going to the Penn Biden Center. It is not yet clear if and when the Justice Department may question Biden himself.
In June 2017, months after leaving the vice presidency, the Bidens purchased their Rehoboth Beach home, which overlooks a state park adjacent to the beach.
