The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s vacation home Wednesday but found no classified documents there.
After more than a three-hour search, no classified documents were found, Biden’s lawyer said, according to CNN.
“The DOJ’s planned search of the President’s Rehoboth residence, conducted in coordination and cooperation with the President’s attorneys, has concluded,” Bob Bauer, attorney for Biden, said to CNN. “No documents with classified markings were found.”
According to Bauer, the FBI apparently took some handwritten notes and other material related to the time when Biden was the vice president, similar to what happened during the search of Biden’s Delaware home in Wilmington.
The Biden administration insists that the president has done nothing improper in regard to the handling of classified material.
“Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer said. “The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate.”
Meanwhile, one Republican leader stated that in spite of the fact that the National Archives commented on the situation with former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, the agency “wasn’t allowed” to do the same regarding Biden, according to the Washington Examiner.
In an interview with Fox News, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) said, “Right before the National Archives came in, they handed us a letter from the Department of Justice informing them and us that the general counsel for the National Archives wasn’t allowed to say anything about the Biden documents.”
“But we went ahead and we had about a three-plus hour transcribed interview with the general counsel, and what we learned was that there is a double standard here with how Donald Trump was treated versus Joe Biden.”
Many of the searches for classified materials conducted at Biden’s properties, such as the one at his home previously reported by The Dallas Express, did not require a warrant, reported CNN.
Biden occasionally spends weekends at the vacation home in Rehoboth with his wife, as recently as January 20.
He said he is fully cooperating with the Justice Department.
Amid the search for classified documents, Texas Senator Ted Cruz suggested the FBI should search the home of Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, for classified documents.
“It seems everywhere they search for classified documents for Joe Biden, they find it,” Cruz said while appearing on the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures.
“Whether in his Wilmington home, his Rehoboth Beach home. Whether in his garage next to his corvette. Whether in the room next to his garage next to his corvette. Whether in the Penn Biden center,” he continued. “It seems he leaves classified documents wherever he goes, and we also know that Hunter Biden at times declared his residence to be those very same places.”
“So I believe the natural next step that is necessary is for the FBI to examine the 1,850+ boxes of documents from Joe Biden’s Senate tenure that’s at the University of Delaware, and I also believe it is critical for the FBI to search Hunter Biden’s home and office residences to make sure there are no classified documents there,” Cruz said. “Given all the evidence that’s piling up, we need to ascertain who had access to what and when.”
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has asked the White House for visitor logs to President Biden’s Wilmington home, but the administration said those logs do not exist.
“Like every president across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the White House counsel’s office said on January 16.
As previously covered by The Dallas Express, Presiden Biden’s attorneys discovered classified materials at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., in November, just before the mid-term elections.
On January 20, the FBI executed a consensual search of the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and found more than six items with classified markings, according to Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as a special counsel on January 12 to investigate Biden’s possession of the documents, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
Cruz’s comment comes as an increasing number of government officials have allegedly mishandled classified documents. The FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home searching for classified documents in August, raising questions about declassification powers and the nature of federal law relating to the issue.
More recently, former Vice President Mike Pence found items with classification markings at his home in Indiana before notifying the National Archives. Pence had previously claimed that he did not remove any classified documents, as reported by The Dallas Express.
