President Joe Biden on Wednesday admitted his staff didn’t do a good enough job of packing up his previous office amid an investigation into his handling of classified documents from his time in the Senate and as vice president.
Biden, under investigation by special counsel Robert Hur after classified documents were found in his former office in Washington and at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, told “PBS Newshour” the items were “from 1974 and the papers were lost.”
“Maybe there’s something else, I don’t know,” he added in an interview from Wisconsin, where he was hosting his first event since his State of the Union address.
Biden, first elected senator in 1972, confirmed that he had been cooperating with the Department of Justice and the National Archives to recover government documents and investigate their handling. However, he admitted his mistake.
“One of the things that he didn’t do very well is that when he was packing up my office to move, he didn’t do the job that he had to do with every piece of literature that was in there,” Biden said.
Last month, amid the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s secret documents at a Florida resort, Biden announced his team had found a “small number” of classified files in Washington’s private office in November. Aides later found six classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington home.
FBI agents began searching both locations. They found six other classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington home from his time as vice president and Senate, and also took handwritten notes from his time as vice president.
Agents also searched Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, but said they found no classified material.
A separate special counsel investigation is investigating Trump’s wrongdoing over classified documents. Trump stonewalled the government’s request to return documents later recovered by FBI agents with a search warrant, and has liked the searchers to the Nazi secret police.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has told the National Archives about classified material found in his Indiana home.
Biden, in a distant PBS interview, also said his decision to authorize the US military to shoot down Chinese spy balloons over the weekend did not harm US-China relations.
“But, look, I mean, the idea of shooting up information-gathering balloons in America — and that makes relations worse?” Biden asked.
Biden said he has not spoken directly to Chinese President Xi Jinping since the spy balloon drama, but his administration has been in touch. The Pentagon said the spy balloons were part of a broader surveillance program the Chinese military has been operating for “several years,” according to The Associated Press.
“Look, I have made it clear to Xi Jinping that we will compete fully
with China, but we’re not looking for conflict,” Biden said.
He also dismissed Republican criticism that he waited too long, until the balloon floated across the Atlantic Ocean, to take it down.
“The idea that this is a dereliction of duty, I think, is a strange idea,” Biden told PBS’s Judy Woodruff. “China knows exactly what the deal is with us.”
Biden, who will be 86 at the end of his second term in office, has said he wants to run for re-election in 2024, but has yet to make a definitive decision.
Asked if his age was a concern, Biden replied: “Look at me.”
“Look, I’m a person who respects fate,” he said. “I will be completely honest with the American people if I think there is a health problem, anything that will prevent me from doing the job.”