White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement that six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s personal library. The White House has previously said only one page was found there.
The latest disclosure is in addition to the discovery of documents found in December in Biden’s garage and in November in his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, since becoming vice president. The apparent mishandling of classified documents and official records from the Obama administration is being investigated by former U.S. attorney Robert Hur, who was appointed special counsel Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Sauber said in a statement on Saturday that Biden’s personal lawyer, who did not have a security clearance, stopped the search after finding the first page on Wednesday afternoon. Sauber discovered the remaining material on Thursday, as he facilitated its retrieval by the Department of Justice.
“When I transferred it to the DOJ official who accompanied me, five additional pages with classified marks were found among the material with, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said. “The DOJ officials and I took them immediately.”
Sauber has previously said that the White House is “confident that a full review will show that the document was inadvertently included, and that the president and attorneys acted quickly upon discovering this error.”
Sauber’s statement did not explain why the White House waited two days to provide an updated accounting of the number of classified records. The White House has faced scrutiny for waiting more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of an initial batch of documents in Biden’s office.
On Thursday, asked if Biden could guarantee that additional classified documents would not be sought again, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “You have to assume it’s over, yes.”
Sauber reiterated Saturday that the White House would cooperate with the Hur investigation.
Bob Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer, said his legal team “tries to balance the importance of public transparency against the norms and limits established to protect the integrity of the investigation.”
The Department of Justice historically imposes a high legal bar before bringing criminal charges in cases involving the mishandling of classified information, with the requirement that people intend to break the law as opposed to those who are just careless or negligent in doing so. The main law governing the unauthorized removal and storage of confidential documents makes it a crime to “knowingly” remove confidential documents and store them in an unauthorized manner.
The situation involving Biden, at least as far as it is known, is different from a separate investigation into one of the classified documents at the club and private home of former President Donald Trump in Florida.
In the Trump case, special counsel Jack Smith is investigating whether anyone sought to obstruct the investigation into the retention of secret records at his Palm Beach estate. Justice Department officials said Trump representatives failed to comply with subpoenas demanding the return of classified records, prompting agents to return to the home with search warrants to gather additional material.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.