The FBI is searching President Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth, Delaware in the wake of the investigation into classified documents, according to reports.
Biden’s attorney said the search was “planned” with the president’s “full support”.
The investigation relates to a wider probe into the handling of classified documents.
As The BBC reports:
Mr Biden’s lawyer, Bob Bauer, said the search was carried out “without advance public notice” in the interests of “operational security and integrity”.
The search is the latest in a series carried out at various locations, following the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center – an office space – in Washington DC in November. This was not made public at the time.
Additional documents were discovered at another of Mr Biden’s homes in Wilmington, Delaware, in subsequent searches conducted in December and January.
The precise number of classified records recovered remains unclear – although at least a dozen were discovered during the January searches alone.
Mr Biden has said his team did “what they should have done” by alerting officials immediately, and that they are “co-operating fully and completely” with the investigation.
Following the first of January’s searches, Mr Biden told reporters the files were in a locked garage.
“It’s not like they are sitting in the street,” he said.
The announcement of the search comes one day after special counsel Robert Hur officially began his duties overseeing the probe into the documents.
After the initial batch of documents was discovered in November, attorneys for Mr Biden immediately notified the office of the White House counsel on 2 November. The files were handed over to the National Archives the following day.
Justice department officials were also immediately notified about the subsequent discoveries.
Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, described the documents discovered in November as “a small number.’
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President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence have also been embroiled in controversy over the handling of classified documents.
In Mr Pence’s case, a “small number of documents bearing classified markings” were found at his home in Carmel, Indiana, according to a letter sent to the National Archives by his lawyer. The documents were recovered by the FBI from a safe at the property on 19 January, with two boxes more delivered to the Archives on 23 January.
An August 2022 search of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida uncovered dozens of boxes and about 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classified markings.
The search warrant came after attorneys representing Mr Trump had said all government records were returned. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he had declassified the documents taken with him.
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