While in Mexico, President Joe Biden has issued a response to the report that broke this past week about the stash of classified documents which were discovered hidden in his private office situated in D.C. after he departed the White House in the wake of his eight-year stint as vice president.
A person quite familiar with the incident explained to CNN that the stash of 10 classified documents consisted of U.S. intelligence memos and other briefing materials concerning Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Iran, but it is not quite clear what the specifics of the documents actually included.
“Can you explain how classified documents ended up in one of your offices?” Biden was asked by a member of the press as part of a joint press conference alongside Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “And should the public have been notified sooner?”
“People know I take classified documents or classified information seriously,” stated Biden. “When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me, secure office in the capital when I, for four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn. They found some documents in a box, you know, a locked cabinet, or at least a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box.”
“And they did what they should have done,” Biden went on. “They immediately called the Archives, immediately called the Archives, turned them over to the Archives.”
Biden claimed that when he was told about the find from his lawyer, he was very “surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office.”
“But I don’t know what’s in the documents,” Biden made sure to state. “I’ve — my lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes. They’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives. And we’re cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review and which I hope will be finished soon. And there’ll be more detail at that time.”
BIden responds to classified documents that were found in his private office: "I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office. But I don't know what's in the documents." pic.twitter.com/je0OHrVqV5
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 11, 2023
