A “small number of documents” with classified markings that appear to be from the Obama administration were found at a think tank in Washington, D.C., tied to President Joe Biden and are under review by the Justice Department and National Archives, a White House lawyer said Monday.
The documents were discovered in a locked closet by Biden’s attorneys days before the midterm elections as they prepared to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president said in a statement.
CBS News first reported on the review of documents.
Sauber said that the White House is cooperating with the Justice Department and National Archives regarding the discovery of the documents found in an office that Biden “periodically” used from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign.
“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,” Sauber said.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed that Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, John R. Lausch, to review the matter of how classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center. The review was intentionally assigned to Lausch, a holdover Trump appointee, to avoid any conflict of interest, the source said.
According to Sauber, the classified material was discovered on Nov. 2 by Biden’s personal attorneys, and the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives, which took possession of the materials the following morning.
“The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives,” Sauber 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.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
