FBI finds no classified documents at Biden’s Rehoboth home
U.S. Secret Service agents are seen outside Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. on January 12, 2021. The FBI is conducting a planned search of President Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware as part of its investigation on the potential mismanagement of classified documents. That’s according to a statement from Biden’s personal attorney.
Shannon McNaught | Delaware Newspaper | PA
On Wednesday morning, FBI agents searched President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware, for more than three hours but found no documents marked classified, his personal attorney said.
Officers “have taken for further review certain documents and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his tenure as vice president,” Biden attorney Bob Bauer said.
A senior law enforcement source who spoke to NBC News corroborated Bauer’s characterization of the FBI search result.
The planned and consensual search is the first publicly known time the FBI has searched the Rehoboth residence. Officers did not obtain a warrant for the search, which began at 8:30 a.m. ET and ended at noon. They had not obtained warrants for two previous FBI searches in other Biden-related locations.
The Justice Department is investigating the discovery of classified documents in a private office of a Washington, D.C. think tank that Biden used when he was a private citizen, and at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, previously said the president’s attorneys searched the Rehoboth home and the Wilmington residence on Jan. 11.
Those attorneys found classified records in Wilmington, but not in Rehoboth, according to Bauer.
The FBI searched the think tank’s office in mid-November after Biden’s personal attorneys first found classified documents there on Nov. 2. The FBI searched Biden’s home in Wilmington on January 20.
On Wednesday, White House spokesman Ian Sams did not say how many total classified documents were found on Biden-linked sites.
In an earlier statement Wednesday, Bauer said, “Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware.”
US President Joe Biden rides a bike in Gordon’s Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, July 10, 2022.
Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
“In accordance with standard DOJ procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, he sought to do this work without public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” the attorney said.
“Today’s research is one more step in a thorough and timely DOJ process that we will continue to fully support and facilitate,” Bauer said.
Bauer, in a later statement, confirmed that the search was complete.
“No documents with classified marks were found,” Bauer said.
Sams told reporters later, “I will not speak about the negotiations, discussions, or collaborations between the president’s personal attorney and the DOJ to establish the research.”
“We are fully cooperating with the Department of Justice,” Sams said.
Last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel, Robert Hur, to oversee the investigation into the Biden documents.
Special Assistant to the President and Spokesman for the Office of White House Legal Counsel Ian Sams calls reporters outside the West Wing of the White House February 1, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Somodevilla chip | Getty Images
Last year, Garland appointed another special counsel to investigate the discovery of classified documents and other government documents at former President Donald Trump’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. .
On August 9, FBI agents found these documents during a raid on Mar-a-Lago. During the search, officers obtained a warrant.
Lawyers for Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence told the National Archives and Records Administration two weeks ago that they had found a “small number” of classified documents at his home in Carmel, Indiana on Jan. 16.
— Additional CNBC reports Emma Kinery And Kevin Breuninger.
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