FBI conducting ‘planned’ search of Biden’s beach house amid classified documents probe

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently conducting a “planned” search of President Joe Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, continuing efforts by the Department of Justice to determine if any documents with classification markings have been stored at Mr Biden’s personal residences.

Bob Bauer, the former White House counsel who serves as Mr Biden’s personal attorney, said in a statement that the Justice Department “is conducting a planned search” of the beach house “with the President’s full support and cooperation”.

“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,” Mr Bauer said. “The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate”.

The president’s lawyer added that “further information” would be forthcoming when the search is complete.

A spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

This latest search of one of the 46th president’s two Delaware residences comes less than two weeks after FBI special agents conducted a daylong search of the Wilmington, Delaware home that has been Mr Biden’s primary residence for many years.

According to Mr Bauer, that “thorough search” of Mr Biden’s home included “full access” to the property and its’ contents, “including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades”.

At the time, agents took possession of “documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President,” as well as “personally handwritten notes” from Mr Biden’s two terms as vice president.

The FBI has also reportedly conducted a separate search of the Washington, DC office suite used by the Penn Biden Center, a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania where Mr Biden kept office space during his time away from government service.

It was at that office where Mr Biden’s lawyers first discovered documents bearing classification markings as they were packing the contents of that space in early November.

Source: independent.co.uk