WASHINGTON — Joe Biden offered himself to Americans as a president they wouldn’t have to think about after the tumult of his predecessor. But an excruciating week of awkward disclosures and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate classified records found at his Delaware home and a former office dating to his time as vice president is beginning to strain his claim to competence.
Evan Vucci, Associated Press
President Joe Biden listens as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a meeting Friday in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.
The surprise revelations that on at least four different occasions Biden’s lawyers found improperly stored classified documents and official records evoked the turmoil surrounding Donald Trump’s presidency, a four-year ruckus from which Biden has tried to move the country past. In the latest development, the White House acknowledged on Saturday that Biden’s lawyers had turned up even more such documents at the home than previously known.
It’s an embarrassment to Biden, and the selection of a special counsel to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing in the matter exposes the president to a new, self-inflicted risk.
Further, it complicates the Justice Department’s calculus about whether to bring charges against Trump over his handling of classified material, hands fresh ammunition to newly empowered House Republicans eager to launch investigations and undercuts a central plank of Biden’s pitch to voters just as he looks to launch a reelection bid in the coming months.
“It just won’t be so exhausting,” former President Barack Obama had promised about a Biden presidency in the closing days of the 2020 campaign, adding that voters are “not going to have to think about the crazy things … and that is worth a lot.”
The Biden case is markedly different from Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and official records — not least because Biden’s team voluntarily turned them over to federal officials when they were discovered. Still, it has caused private frustration among Biden allies and some advisers because the president and his team, as billed, were supposed to be better than this.
The current White House explanation, offered by lawyer Richard Sauber, is that the special counsel’s inquiry “will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced” — a “mistake” with the nation’s secrets.
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AP file
Jan. 20, 2017: Biden's two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama end.
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AP file
Mid-2017-2019: Biden periodically uses an office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington.
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AP file
Jan. 20, 2021: Biden is sworn in as president.
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AP file
Nov. 2, 2022: Biden's personal attorneys come across Obama-Biden administration documents in a locked closet while packing files as they prepare to close out Biden's office in the Penn Biden Center. They notify the National Archives.
Nov. 3, 2022: The National Archives takes possession of the documents.
Nov. 4, 2022: The National Archives informs the Justice Department about the documents.
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AP file
Nov. 8, 2022: Midterm elections.
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White House via AP, File
November-December 2022: Biden's lawyers search the president's homes in Wilmington, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to see if there are other documents from his vice presidency.
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AP file
Nov. 9, 2022: The FBI begins an assessment of whether classified information has been mishandled.
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AP file
Nov. 14, 2022: Garland assigns U.S. attorney John Lausch to look into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the matter.
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AP file
Jan. 5, 2023: Lausch advises Garland he believes that appointing a special counsel is warranted.
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AP file
Jan. 9, 2023: CBS News, followed by other news organizations, reveals the discovery of the documents at the Penn Biden Center. The White House acknowledges that "a small number" of Obama-Biden administration records, including some with classified markings, were found at the center. It makes no mention of the documents found in Wilmington.
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AP file
Jan. 10: 2023: Biden for the first time addresses the document issue. During a press conference in Mexico City, he says he was "surprised to learn that there were any documents" in the Penn Biden Center and doesn't know what's in them. He does not mention the documents found in Wilmington.
Jan. 11, 2023: Biden's lawyers complete their search of Biden's residences, find one additional classified document in the president's personal library in Wilmington. NBC News and other news organizations reveal a second batch of documents has been found at a location other than the Penn Wilson Center.
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AP file
Jan. 12: 2023: Biden's lawyer informs Lausch that an additional classified document has been found. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, reveals publicly for the first time that documents were found in Biden's Wilmington garage and one document was found in an adjacent room. Garland announces that he has appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, to serve as special counsel.
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Jessica Christian, AP
Jan. 19, 2023: On a trip to tour California storm damage, President Joe Biden says there is "no there there" after the discovery of classified documents and official records at his home and former office. Biden says they "found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place." Biden says he is "fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”
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Carolyn Kaster, AP
Jan. 20: The FBI searches President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware and locates six additional documents containing classified markings and also takes possession of some of his notes, the president's lawyer says. Authorities have complete access to the home and spend nearly 13 hours combing through handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists and schedules.
Jan. 21: President Joe Biden’s lawyers publicly reveal the results of the Jan. 20 search.
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AP file
Then-President Donald Trump left the White House for Florida ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration. According to the General Services Administration, members of Trump's transition team were responsible for packing items into boxes, putting boxes on pallets and shrink-wrapping those pallets so they could be transported.
Prior to shipping, GSA said it "required the outgoing transition team to certify in writing that the items being shipped were required to wind down the Office of the Former President and would be utilized as the Office transitioned to its new location in Florida."
GSA did not examine the contents of the boxes and "had no knowledge of the contents prior to shipping," according to an agency spokesperson. GSA was also not responsible for the former president's personal belongings, which were transported by a private moving company.
Under the Presidential Records Act, presidential records are considered federal property — not private — and are supposed to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration. Multiple federal laws govern the handling of classified and sensitive government documents, including statutes that make it a crime to remove such material and retain it at an unauthorized location.
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AP file
After NARA realized that documents from Trump's presidency seemed to be missing from the material that it received as he left office, the agency requested the records from Trump on or about May 6, 2021, according to a heavily redacted affidavit made public Aug. 26, 2022.
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AP file
The special agent in charge of NARA's Office of the Inspector General sent a referral to the Justice Department via email after a preliminary review of the boxes revealed numerous classified documents.
"Of most significant concern," they wrote, according to a heavily-redacted affidavit released last week, "was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly (sic) identified."
After an initial review of the NARA referral, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the matter.
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AP file
Trump's Save America PAC released a statement insisting the return of the documents had been as "routine" and "no big deal."
Trump insisted the "papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis," and added, "It was a great honor to work with NARA to help formally preserve the Trump Legacy."
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AP file
The Justice Department sent a letter to Trump's lawyers seeking immediate access to the material, citing "important national security interest."
"Access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps," the department wrote.
Trump's lawyers requested an additional extension.
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AP file
Three FBI agents and a DOJ attorney went to Mar-a-Lago to collect additional material offered by a Trump attorney in response to the subpoena. They were given "a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents," according to an Aug. 30 filing.
That envelope, it was later found, contained 38 documents with classification markings, including five documents marked confidential, 16 marked secret and 17 marked top secret.
During the visit, the filing said, "Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the Fifteen Boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the Administration."
Trump's lawyers also told investigators that all of the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location — a Mar-a-Lago storage room. Investigators were permitted to visit the room, but were "explicitly prohibited" from opening or looking inside any of the boxes, they reported, "giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained."
The Justice Department was also given a signed certification letter stating that a "diligent search" had been completed and that no documents remained.
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AP file
The Justice Department filed an application for a search and seizure warrant of Mar-a-Lago, citing "probable cause" that additional presidential records and records containing classified information remained in various parts of the club.
"There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction" would be found, read the heavily-redacted copy of the affidavit laying out the FBI's rationale for the search.
The Justice Department also revealed in the Aug. 30 filing that it had found evidence "that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in South Florida approved the application that same day.
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AP file
The FBI executed the search at Mar-a-Lago, seizing 36 items of evidence, including boxes and containers holding more than 100 classified records, an order pardoning Trump ally Roger Stone and information about the "President of France."
Agents found classified documents both in the storage room as well as in the former president's office — including three classified documents found not in boxes, but in office desks.
They included items so sensitive that, "In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents."
"That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the 'diligent search' that the former President's counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter," the Justice Department wrote.
Trump and his allies, meanwhile, cast the search as a weaponization of the criminal justice system aimed at damaging him politically as he prepares for another potential White House run.
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AP file
Judge Reinhart unsealed the warrant that authorized the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago, which details that federal agents were investigating potential violations of three federal laws, including the Espionage Act.
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AP file
A highly redacted version of the affidavit laying out the FBI's rationale for searching Mar-a-Lago was released.
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Department of Justice via AP
The Justice Department responded to Trump's request for a special master in a filing that included new details about the investigation, including an assertion that classified documents were "likely concealed and removed" from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to obstruct the probe.
It included a photograph of some the material found at the club, including cover pages of paperclip-bound documents — some marked as "TOP SECRET//SCI" with bright yellow borders and one marked as "SECRET//SCI" with a rust-colored border — splayed out on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago.
"Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see," Trump responded. "Thought they wanted them kept Secret?"
Biden seemingly ignored or forgot about a cardinal rule in politics: Check your closet for skeletons before you complain about someone else’s. His public criticisms about Trump’s ” irresponsible ” handling of classified documents, however different the circumstances, are now coming back to haunt him.
Biden allies say the packing up of his vice presidential office happened swiftly. Biden aimed to run through the tape on his eight years alongside Obama even as aides worked to close down his office before Trump’s inauguration at noon on Jan. 20, 2017.
But that explanation, said Richard Painter, the top ethics official in the George W. Bush administration, suggests behavior that was “incredibly careless and really quite shocking.”
Painter said that while Biden probably would avoid the criminal issues looming over Trump because there is so far no sense that Biden intentionally mishandled classified records, it still merited investigation.
“You never just pack stuff up and cart it out of there,” Painter said. He said aides and lawyers are supposed to carefully sift through what are official records that are property of the National Archives and personal records that may be removed.
“To say nothing of classified documents which have these distinctive markings on them,” Painter said. “It’s still very worrisome. It’s a serious national security breach.”
Beyond all that, the piecemeal way that word of the discoveries became public — more than two months after the first batch of classified documents had been found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington — has drawn bewilderment from crisis management experts.
“The White House can’t let itself be seen as hiding information or be bled to death by investigators’ or others’ leaks,” said Adam Goldberg, who served as special associate counsel to President Bill Clinton from 1996-1999.
It wasn’t until Monday that the White House confirmed that classified documents had been found at Biden’s former office on Nov. 2, days before the midterm elections. Even then, that acknowledgement came only in response to news inquiries.
Not until Thursday did Biden lawyers acknowledge the Dec. 20 discovery of documents in the garage of Biden’s house in Wilmington, Delaware, and inform the Justice Department that another classified record had been found the night before in Biden’s home library.
“If there’s any further bad news out there, they better be the ones to put it out and put it out all at once,” Goldberg said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had said Thursday that Americans can “assume” there are no more classified documents or government records improperly stored after Biden’s personal lawyers conducted a final search that concluded on Wednesday evening.
Carolyn Kaster, Associated Press
The access road to President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Del., is seen Friday.
She repeatedly deflected questions about the White House’s public disclosures, insisting the president’s team was handling handling the matter the “right way” by deferring to the Justice Department.
A statement from Sauber on Saturday about the latest discovery of classified documents in Delaware did not explain why the White House waited two days to provide an updated accounting.
If Biden’s White House needs to get its messaging back on track after a week of missteps and unforced errors, Trump’s issues go well beyond mere competence.
“On the political front, assuming the White House gets its communications right, I’m not worried about any political fallout,” said Goldberg. “With Trump, competency hasn’t been the issue, intentional misconduct has been. While Republicans will try to muddy this up, there’s just such a big difference between Biden discovering and disclosing these on his own and Trump’s obstruction and lying.”
