The American president assures that it was his lawyers who discovered the documents of his vice-presidency and that they immediately contacted the archives.
Joe Biden said he was unaware of the contents of confidential documents dating to his vice-presidency under Barack Obama (2009-2017) found in one of the offices he sometimes used as a workplace. “I was notified of the discovery, and I was surprised to learn that government-related documents had been brought into this office. But I don’t know what’s in the documents.”declared the American president on Tuesday January 10 to the press at the end of a summit with the Mexican president and the prime minister of Canada in Mexico City.
His lawyers “will cooperate fully” during the examination of these documents, he assured. The documents were found “when my lawyers cleaned out my office at the University of Pennsylvania”, detailed Joe Biden. As soon as the lawyers saw that some were confidential, “they did what they had to do, they called the archives” to hand them over, according to the president.
A “small number of documents classified as confidential”
This “small number of documents classified as confidential” was found in a “locked cupboard” at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank linked to the University of Pennsylvania, the president’s legal adviser, Richard Sauber, said on Monday. “The documents had not been the subject of any prior request or requestand, since being handed over to the Archives, Joe Biden’s lawyers have continued to cooperate in order to “ensure the Archives is in possession of any Obama-Biden administration records”he added.
The FBI had carried out a spectacular search of Donald Trump’s residence in Florida in August in order to recover thousands of documents, including a hundred classified defense secrets, taken by the ex-president after his departure from the White House and which he had hitherto refused to return to the Archives. According to press reports, these confidential documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago club contained in particular sensitive information on China and Iran, as well as nuclear secrets. “When will the FBI raid Joe Biden’s many residences, or even the White House?” responded Donald Trump in a statement.