Biden pressed by Fox News’ Peter Doocy over classified documents found in his garage
The President is facing a Justice Department investigation after sensitive material was found by his lawyers stored in his Corvette.
President Biden clashed with Fox News journalist Peter Doocy on Thursday after the Justice Department confirmed that a second batch of classified documents was found in his personal residence.
With echoes over the ongoing investigation into former President Trump, the Justice Department is now looking the handling of classified documents during Biden’s time as Vice President.
Questioning Biden at a press conference on Thursday, Doocy appeared incredulous as he asked: “Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”
Biden insisted that the garage had been locked and that he took the proper handling of classified documents seriously. He added that he and his team were cooperating fully with an ongoing investigation and that his lawyers had worked to identify any outstanding classified documents.
Will Biden face investigation for the handling of classified documents?
Biden has faced some embarrassing questions in recent days in relation to a number of classified documents found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has acted swiftly to appoint a special counsel to investigate.
It was confirmed on Thursday that Robert Hur, a Trump-appointed former US attorney for Maryland, will conduct the probe. The investigation will look into the alleged mishandling of documents and assess the scale of the potential breach before deciding whether any charges should be brought.
Last November aides in a Washington DC office stumbled across documents that date back to Biden’s time as Vice President, but that discovery has only come to light in recent days after the investigation was launched by the Justice Department.
Last month a lawyer working for Biden informed the Justice Department that more documents had been found alongside Biden’s Corvette in his garage. The case represents a significant embarrassment for Biden after the Democrats were quick to admonish Trump for his own handling of sensitive documents.
Is this the same as claims that Trump mishandled documents?
Despite obvious similarities there are a number of significant distinctions between Trump and Biden’s alleged misdemeanours. The scale of the two cases is very different; Biden’s lawyers found 10 classified documents in the first cache, while more than 325 pieces were discovered at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate.
Perhaps even more telling is the differing origins and responses to their respective investigations. The Biden documents were found by his own lawyers, who informed the Justice Department of the error and immediately turned them over to the National Archives.
In stark contrast, the National Archives sent many requests to Trump asking him to provide important documents that they believed were missing. Initially a small number were turned over by Trump’s team but archivists believed that some documents had been held back.
It was this felling that sparked the notorious FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago in August 2022 that uncovered more than 100 additional documents, some of which bore the marking ‘Top Secret’. Special Counsel Jack Smith is currently conducting an investigation into Trump and his team’s handling of documents.