Secret documents from the Vice President Biden era have been found in the private office in Washington

US President Joe Biden’s personal lawyers in November discovered classified documents from his vice-president’s days at a Washington think tank, a White House attorney confirmed Monday.

CBS News earlier reported that nearly 10 documents were found in Biden’s office at the Ben Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, adding that US Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the US Attorney in Chicago to review classified documents that were turned over to National. Archives.

The classified materials were identified by Biden’s personal attorneys on November 2, days before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, the president’s special counsel, said in a statement Monday.

The Ben Biden Center is a name for Biden, who used the office space periodically from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign.

The White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives the day those documents were discovered, Sauber said, adding that the National Archives acquired the materials the next morning.

Sauber also said the documents had not been the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the National Archives.

The documents were discovered when Biden’s personal attorneys were “packing up files in a locked safe in preparation for vacating an office at the Ben Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said. He added that the White House is cooperating with the Department of Justice and the National Archives.

The Ministry of Justice and the National Archives and Research Center did not respond to a request for comment. Biden served as Vice President under former President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.

Sauber’s statement did not say how many classified documents they contained, or what level they were classified. CBS News reported that it contained no nuclear secrets.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that Biden’s attorneys “appeared to have taken immediate and appropriate action” after finding the documents. Raskin said he was confident Garland would “make an impartial determination of any further action that may be required.”

The Justice Department is separately investigating former President Donald Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents that he kept at his Florida resort after he left the White House in January 2021. -Lago estate. About 100 documents classified as classified were among the thousands of records seized.

“When is the FBI going to raid several of Joe Biden’s homes, maybe even the White House? These documents are definitely not declassified,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform late Monday.