Secret documents affair: FBI searches Joe Biden’s beach house

In the affair of finding secret government documents, there are new searches: now the US President’s beach house is in focus.

In the search for secret documents, the US judiciary is now also combing President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach in the state of Delaware. “Today, with the full support and cooperation of the President, the Justice Department is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” Biden’s private attorney Bob Bauer said Wednesday.

“Per standard Department of Justice procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, this work has been attempted to be performed without prior public notice, and we have agreed to work together,” Bauer said, according to CBS News.

In the past few weeks, confidential documents have repeatedly appeared in Biden’s private rooms – in the office in Washington and in his private house in Wilmington in the state of Delaware, including in the garage there. In January, investigators searched Biden’s home in Wilmington.

Several US media reported on Tuesday that the FBI had already searched a former Biden office in the capital Washington in mid-November after its employees found confidential documents from Biden’s time as US Vice President there in early November. It was unclear whether additional documents were discovered during the FBI search, it said. The search was carried out in cooperation with Biden’s team, a search warrant was not requested.

The first tranche of confidential documents was discovered on November 2 – shortly before the US congressional elections. The White House emphasizes that Biden’s lawyers immediately informed the National Archives. However, the public only found out about it in January when the broadcaster CBS reported about it. In response to the initial discovery, Biden’s staff then looked elsewhere.

In this case, details only gradually come to light – Biden and the White House are therefore criticized.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has now hired a special prosecutor to investigate the incidents. For the President, the revelations are politically very sensitive, because it is not allowed to store confidential government documents privately after leaving office. The National Archives are responsible for this in the USA. Biden was US Vice President from 2009 to 2017.