The US Department of Justice considered the possibility of involving FBI officers in monitoring the process of searching for classified documents in the possessions of US President Joe Biden, but abandoned this idea.
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“Instead, both sides agreed that Biden’s personal lawyers would search his homes, notify the DOJ as soon as they found any other potentially secret records, and arrange for them to be seized by law enforcement,” sources familiar with the situation said.
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The decision to not involve the FBI was due to a desire to avoid complicating further stages of the investigation and the cooperation of Biden’s lawyer, who quickly handed over the first batch of classified documents, the sources said.
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Last week, Attorney General and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had appointed Robert Hoore as special counsel to investigate the situation with classified documents found in the premises used by Biden.
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American media previously reported that secret documents were found in Biden’s office at the think tank named after him in Washington. Materials relating to the period when the US leader was vice president were discovered by his confidants on the eve of the midterm elections in early November. The White House acknowledged that Biden used these office spaces in Washington from 2017 to 2020. According to media reports, among the secret documents were intelligence data and materials from briefings about Ukraine, Iran and the UK, they are dated 2013-2016. Biden said that the find came as a surprise to him, he knows nothing about the contents of the papers. As reported, the second portion of classified documents was discovered by Biden’s aides in the garage of his home in Wilmington, later five more pages of classified materials were added to this.
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The storage of classified materials taken out of the White House last August was the reason for a search of the estate of former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and threatens him with criminal prosecution.
