CNN —
President Joe Biden began the new year with political winds at his back.
Amid the chaos of a fractured Republican majority trying to pick a House speaker, his administration has made a big public effort to show how laws supporting his ambitious policy priorities are showing tangible results. Democrats avoided a blowout in the midterm elections and retained a majority in the Senate. There were signs that inflation was starting to ease. His party rallied around his re-election bid. And his most obvious Republican challenger had yet to win the full support of his base.
But in just one week, Biden’s political trajectory changed dramatically.
News broke a week ago that classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president were found in his former personal office in November. And now the White House has gone into defensive mode over questions about the lack of transparency and potential legal issues related to misplacing the documents.
Here’s how the story unfolded:
News that several classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall in his private office in Washington, D.C., was broken by CBS News just moments after his motorcade pulled up to the National Palace in Mexico City for a bilateral meeting with president of mexico.
The president remained silent when asked about the documents during that meeting last Monday — where he sat next to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had quietly assigned the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., to investigate the matter.
According to White House lawyers, that initial set of documents was found by the president’s personal lawyers as they closed down the downtown D.C. office that Biden used as part of his work with the University of Pennsylvania — which was not authorized to hold classified material.
CNN reported that after the discovery, Biden’s lawyers immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration, which began investigating the matter. Biden’s team cooperated with NARA. In November, NARA sent a referral to the Department of Justice to look into the matter.
CNN reports that the 10 classified documents include US intelligence memos and briefing materials that cover topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter. CNN’s reports also indicate that Biden and his White House legal team do not know exactly what is contained in the classified documents because they have not reviewed them, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
In the evening, Biden said he was unaware that government documents from his time as vice president had been taken to his personal office after he left government service.
“I was surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question at a press conference in Mexico City, where he was attending a trilateral summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
Biden stressed that he did not know what was in the documents.
A source familiar with Lausch’s work also told CNN on Tuesday that the U.S. attorney has already completed the initial part of his investigation and provided his preliminary findings to Garland.
Garland chose Lausch to conduct the investigation into Biden’s documents because he is one of two remaining Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys and to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest because he was not appointed by Biden, people briefed on the matter said.
The White House on Wednesday declined to answer a series of critical questions about classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall, citing an ongoing Justice Department review.
The documents were discovered on November 2, just six days before the midterm elections, but the president’s lawyers did not publicly acknowledge the discovery of the documents until January 9, when news of the discovery broke.
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre did not say who brought the documents into the office or whether other documents were found. She also could not say whether an audit was underway to find other possible documents or when the president was informed of the discovery of the documents.
Nor could she give assurances that there were no additional classified materials in other offices.
“This is being looked into by the Department of Justice. I will not go beyond what the president shared yesterday,” Jean-Pierre said, repeating the explanation in so many words during Wednesday’s news conference. “I’m not going to go beyond what my White House counsel colleagues shared with all of you as well.”
Reports emerged Wednesday night that more classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s two Delaware residences — located in Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington. Wednesday’s news release did not specify where the new documents were found. They only said “second location”.
Garland would later say that the White House counsel’s office notified the Justice Department of the second batch of documents on Dec. 20.
The White House confirmed the previous day’s news that more classified documents had been found in Wilmington. The documents were found “among personal and political documents” in Wilmington, the White House said.
Richard Sauber, a special adviser to the president, said in a statement that Biden’s lawyers had finished reviewing the Delaware homes Wednesday night. The documents were located in storage in Biden’s garage and an adjoining room. No classified documents were found on the Rehoboth property, Sauber said.
Speaking after that confirmation, Biden said the documents were in a “locked garage” and that he was cooperating fully with the Justice Department.
“It’s not like they’re sitting on the street,” he insisted when a reporter asked why he kept classified material next to a sports car.
The president said he would “get a chance to talk about all of this, God willing, soon.”
Hours after those remarks, Garland took the unusual step of appointing a special counsel to take over the investigation. The Attorney General’s announcement significantly escalates the existing investigation.
Special Counsel Robert Hurr was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for Maryland by then-President Donald Trump in 2017 and served in that role until his resignation in 2021.
CNN also reported Thursday that Cathy Chung, the Pentagon’s deputy director of protocol, was interviewed as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the handling of the documents. Chung previously served as Biden’s executive assistant while he was vice president.
The White House announced Saturday that Biden aides on Thursday found five additional pages of classified material at his Wilmington residence — the same day a special counsel was appointed to investigate the matter.
The discovery came just hours after Sauber’s statement specifically cited the discovery of a single document.
The disclosure was the third in a week, and the second time that the initial information provided later turned out to be incomplete. In fact, Sauber had said the review of Biden’s homes had ended Wednesday night, although the additional five pages were discovered Thursday night.
The new pages were discovered when a White House lawyer went to Wilmington to facilitate the transfer of the classified document found at Biden’s home to Justice Department officials, Sauber said.
Biden’s personal attorney also tried to explain Saturday why he and other members of Biden’s team have not been completely open about the findings.
“The president’s personal lawyers have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency, where appropriate, with the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation,” Bob Bauer said in a statement. “These considerations require that details related to the investigation be avoided from public release while it is ongoing.”
Bauer added that releasing more details about the case could “complicate the ability of reviewing authorities to obtain information easily and in an uncompromised form.”
The White House counsel’s office also revealed Monday that there are no visitor logs to track guests coming and going to Biden’s Wilmington home.
House Republicans are demanding that the White House turn over all information related to the documents, including any logs of visitors to Biden’s private residence who may have had access to his personal office in Washington.
“Like every president in decades of modern history, his personal residence is private,” the attorney’s office said in a statement Monday morning. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitor logs, including their regular publication, after the previous administration had discontinued them.”
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