President Biden's special counsel confirmed that classified documents from his time as vice president were discovered in a private office space and turned over to the National Archives in November, according to Axios. The documents were found while Biden's personal attorneys were packing files from a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., which Biden periodically used from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 campaign, said Biden counsel Richard Sauber. He said, "Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives." Classified documents were similarly found outside the National Archives last summer when the FBI seized boxes of records from former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The Department of Justice is investigating Trump for his handling of classified information, though Trump has claimed that presidents can declassify documents "even by thinking about it." It’s unclear if any investigation will be launched based on the discovery of records in the private office Biden used.
"President Biden has stated that taking classified documents from the White House is 'irresponsible,'" said House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer (R-KY). He said that under the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice and the National Archives have been compliant and therefore he is expecting the same from President Biden who he says, "...inappropriately maintained classified documents in an insecure setting for several years." Republicans have communicated dissatisfaction, with Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) asking for the same kind of FBI raid Trump experienced and tweeted, "We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them and one for us." Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said Biden's attorneys "appear to have taken immediate and proper action to notify the National Archives about their discovery ... so [the records] could be returned to federal government custody."