By: AFP and El País
US government officials found six other confidential documents at the family residence Joe Biden in a new twist on an already embarrassing case for the US President.
“The Justice Department has taken possession of materials it believes are within the scope of its investigation, including six (…) documents marked as classified,” Bob Bauer, attorney for Joe Biden, said in a statement Saturday.
He specified that the files in question come from two phases in the political life of the 80-year-old Democrat: on the one hand his long career of more than 30 years as a Delaware Senator and on the other hand his time as Vice President of Barack Obama (2009 and 2017).
The new discovery joins a series of smaller revelations that have been made public in recent days White House in a very delicate position. Biden, through his lawyers, had previously admitted on January 9 that confidential documents had been discovered in November at a think tank in Washington, where he had an office.
Then, on Jan. 12, the Democratic President admitted that more confidential files were found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
documentary politics
The United States classifies its top secrets as confidential, but it also routinely classifies State Department communications with its embassies, even when they sometimes involve trivial matters, as the WikiLeaks leak has shown. Naturally, the contents of the documents improperly kept by Biden were not disclosed, although some were known to concern the UK, Ukraine and Iran.
The ten confidential documents Biden had in his office were discovered on November 2, days before Choose Halfway through his tenure, news like this could have had a real impact. However, the discovery was only known two weeks ago, and this delay is another of the questions the White House was unable to answer.
Biden said he was “surprised” to learn that there were government files in the Penn Biden Center’s office and said he was unaware of their contents. If you can convince prosecutors that there was no intention to seize and hold them, the criminal case can be watered down.
Impeachment is a different matter altogether.
The key
Mandate. The 1978 law requires US Presidents and Vice Presidents to send all their emails, letters, and other work documents to National Archives.