Among many unanswered questions in President Joe Biden‘s unfolding classified documents scandal, one of the biggest is where materials may still be lurking in unsecured locations.
The FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington residence last weekend, uncovering six additional items in the process. All documents inside the house are apparently accounted for now, but there are at least four other locations where documents could be stored that have not been subjected to a full search.
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“Given the pattern of discoveries, it is hard to understand the delay, let alone the failure, to conduct [additional] searches,” said Jonathan Turley, Shapiro chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
The saga began when classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2, though the public did not learn about it until two months later. Documents have also been found at Biden’s Wilmington home via four different rounds of discovery that ended with a 12-hour FBI search.
But several other locations containing Biden’s papers do not appear to have been searched so extensively.
The first is the Penn Biden Center, a think tank that has attracted controversy for its ties to Chinese donors. Though the entire story began there when a lawyer was reportedly clearing out office space in early November, the Washington Post reported on Jan. 18 that the space remains uncleared nearly three months later.
Second is Biden’s Rehoboth Beach home, where he stayed last weekend following the search of his Wilmington residence.
The FBI has not searched the beach house, and though the White House has said Biden’s lawyers searched it and found no classified materials, the administration also insisted multiple times that searches were finished at Wilmington only to disclose later that more documents were found.
Third is the Biden Institute, a separate think tank that Biden set up at his alma mater, the University of Delaware. The Washington Examiner has contacted the school to ask if any documents are located at the Biden Institute and if it will be searched.
And fourth, also at the University of Delaware, is a massive collection of Biden’s Senate papers, which he donated to the school in 2011.
This substantial trove of some 1,875 boxes and 415 gigabytes of electric records from his 36-year Senate career has attracted some attention of late. The Wilmington home search turned up some records dating to Biden’s senate days, which focused reporters on the college’s collection.
“Did the president’s lawyers or the FBI have any plans to look into Mr. Biden’s Senate papers that are all held at the University of Delaware, given that Senate materials have now been included in the materials that were found?” a reporter asked White House spokesman Ian Sams on Monday.
Sams responded that it was up to the Justice Department to decide.
But Turley and other experts say those documents should have been searched already.
“The Delaware documents are a major concern given Biden’s efforts to prevent any access to them,” he said. “If the president removed classified documents as a senator, it is obviously possible that such documents could have been included in the material sent to Delaware. It is long overdue for the president to give not just the FBI but the media and public access to those documents.”
Republicans are not alone in calling for more information. Democrats have called for more transparency, and some may even be turning on Biden as more details come to light.
The public wants more answers too. A supermajority of 76% said in a recent Economist-YouGov survey that they support the Justice Department’s investigation into the matter, and 71% said it was a serious problem for a president to take classified documents with them. (Just 14% described it as not serious.)
Former Vice President Mike Pence was found to have classified documents in his home. Former President Donald Trump is already the subject of an investigation into his handling of such materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The National Legal and Policy Center is among the groups calling for full-on searches of Biden’s other properties.
“The FBI needs to search the entire 14,000-square-foot Penn Biden Center where classified documents were found by his private attorneys searching only Biden’s private office on Nov. 2,” said NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar. “Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who served as managing director, also had an office there.”
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NLPC is calling for searches of other places too, including a temporary office set up by the General Services Administration when Biden left the vice presidency, a temporary Penn Biden Center facility in midtown Washington, and a 12,000-square-foot mansion Biden rented before his White House run.
