President Joe Biden listens during a news conference with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the 10th North American Leaders' Summit at the National Palace in Mexico City, on Jan. 10.Andrew Harnik/The Associated Press
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was “surprised” to learn in November that his lawyers found classified government documents in his former office at a think tank in Washington, and he said he does not know what information they contain.
Biden spoke a day after the White House acknowledged that his lawyers had discovered a small cache of Obama-era documents as they packed up his former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
The revelation created a political headache for Biden, who has called former President Donald Trump irresponsible for hoarding sensitive documents at his private club and residence in Florida, and a tactical opportunity for Republicans who had been badly divided in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections.
The White House has stressed that the circumstances are different — that Biden had neither been notified that he had official records nor been asked to return them, and his team promptly revealed the discovery to the National Archives and returned them within a day.
Biden on Tuesday said he takes “classified documents seriously” and that his team had immediately contacted the archives to turn over the materials. “We’re cooperating fully — cooperating fully — with the review,” he said.
The Justice Department is reviewing the discovery to determine how to proceed. According to two people familiar with the matter, the inquiry is aimed at helping Attorney General Merrick Garland decide whether to appoint a special counsel, like the one investigating Trump’s failure to return all of the sensitive documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Garland has been briefed on the inquiry, according to a person familiar with the situation, though it is not clear if he has made a decision.
The classified documents included briefing materials on foreign countries from his time as vice president, two people familiar with the situation said Tuesday. They asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The documents were found on Nov. 2, and the National Archives retrieved them the next morning. The White House waited to publicly acknowledge the matter on Monday, in response to a CBS News report revealing what had happened.
The discovery of the documents came a week before the midterm congressional elections, when the news would have been a high-profile, last-minute development.