US President under pressure
Biden on classified documents in his garage: “It’s not like they were lying on the street”
The discovery of further documents classified as secret puts US President Joe Biden further on the defensive
© Jim Watson / AFP
Joe Biden has personally confirmed that other government documents classified as secret have been found on him. They were stored in his garage, next to his vintage Corvette.
In the search for government documents, more secret documents were found in a garage owned by US President Joe Biden from his time as Vice President. The “small number of additional documents” with classified information markings were discovered in storage in the garage of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House said. Another document was discovered in an adjacent room between stored materials. No records were found at Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. In this case, too, the Ministry of Justice was notified immediately.
The US President himself defends the preservation of secret government documents. “My Corvette is in a locked garage,” said Biden when asked about the find. So it’s not as if the documents were lying on the street. The President is the proud owner of a vintage 1967 Corvette, which he says he received as a gift for his first wedding. A journalist had asked how it could be that Biden kept secret material next to his Corvette.
Secret documents make Biden look bad
Biden also acknowledged that classified information was found in his “personal library.” He is cooperating with the Department of Justice in the case. People would know that he takes dealing with secret government documents seriously. Biden announced that he would like to comment on the finds in more detail at a later date – but did not give any details.
On Monday it became public that Biden had kept secret documents from his time as US Vice President Barack Obama in his private offices in the Penn Biden Center in the capital Washington. These were found when the office was cleared out last November, shortly before the important midterm elections. The situation is politically extremely sensitive for Biden, because his predecessor Donald Trump caused a scandal in the summer with a similar case.