United States: US Vice President Joe Biden's home in Rehoboth, Delaware has been searched by the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation into unauthorized storage of classified material at his properties, according to Biden's lawyer Bob Bauer, who insisted that the search was both "planned" and consensual.
Because he had the "full support" of the president, investigators did not need a search warrant, and the agency has not provided any additional information regarding the investigation. According to Bauer, the lack of advance notification was done to maintain "operational security and integrity".
It was revealed on Tuesday that the FBI searched the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, DC, in November after secret documents were found there days before voting for the US 2022 midterm elections.
Between his terms as president from 2017 to 2019, Biden held a desk at the center. At the time, neither the discovery nor its aftermath were made public.
In several searches conducted in December and January, more classified material was found at Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home. During a 13-hour search of the property last month, six classified documents were found, some dating back to his Senate career, and FBI agents also seized a "large" number of his notebooks.
After top-secret and classified documents from Barack Obama's two terms as vice president were discovered in his garage, the FBI went back for a more thorough search.
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Tuesday's CBS report revealed that the November search of the Penn Biden Center was also conducted without a warrant and with the president's full approval. In total between 25 and 30 classified documents have been found.
On Tuesday, special counsel Robert Hur's investigation into Biden's ownership of sensitive information began. Following the discovery of classified documents at former Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana residence, the National Archives issued a request last month to the six most recent presidential administrations, requesting they return any unauthorized papers.
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A trove of documents found last year during an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was criticized as a political stunt by the Republican presidential candidate himself.
