The National Archives were notified by Congress that President Joe Biden’s Boston legal team had provided nine boxes of records.
Further details about the probe into Biden’s handling of government materials were reportedly revealed in a letter addressed this week to two Republican senators. It’s been reported that the letter concerns attorney Patrick Moore, who was initially fingered as the individual who discovered secret paperwork while cleaning out the president’s former think tank office in early November. According to the letter, further details have now emerged.
NARA contacted President Biden’s counsel on November 3, 2022, to pick up boxes from the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., but that contact informed NARA that other boxes had been moved from the Penn Biden Center to Moore’s law firm in Boston. This information was relayed in a letter from Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall, dated Tuesday.
Wall stated that, contrary to previous beliefs, Biden’s attorneys had begun reviewing the Penn Biden Center’s materials as early as October 2022 and had brought some boxes to Boston since then.
The Justice Department requested “NARA officials travel to Mr. Moore’s office in Boston and get nine boxes,” according to Wall’s papers from that day. After then, these containers were transferred to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Archives in Boston. According to Wall, it is unclear whether or not the “contents of the boxes recovered at Mr. Moore’s Boston office have not been looked at,” and thus whether or not they contain sensitive information.
Wall was questioned by Republicans Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Representative Chuck Grassley (R-IA) about how he learned that classified records from Joe Biden’s time as vice president and as a senator had been discovered.
When early November rolled around, Biden’s legal staff was busy clearing out his office at the Penn Biden Center. According to reports, the discovery of ten or so “classified” documents is at the root of the current dispute. CBS News was the first to report on US Attorney John Lausch’s probe. Immediately following the announcement, Biden claimed his team had contacted the National Archives to send over the documents.
Former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur was brought in as a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into this case and determine if “any person or business” had broken the law following Lausch’s original probe.
According to CNN’s sources, the president’s handling of records was discussed during a meeting between Moore and the inquiry team, led by Lausch, at the outset of the probe. On November 9, according to the Washington Examiner, the National Archives scooped up several boxes of documents from Moore’s office. The number of containers was not specified. Moore had arranged for pickup from the National Archives. Emails obtained through the FOIA demonstrated this.
The FBI has examined both of Biden’s houses in Delaware (Wilmington and Rehoboth) as well as his Washington, D.C. think tank, the Penn Biden Center. White House and Biden’s attorneys have maintained throughout that they maintain regular communication with the National Archives and the Department of Justice.
The National Archives has requested that all former presidents and vice presidents also conduct similar searches of their homes after it was discovered that both former President Donald Trump (who is currently being investigated by a separate special counsel) and former Vice President Mike Pence had classified documents in their possession.
On Wednesday, Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned the heads of the United States intelligence community that failing to provide the materials requested by Congress may derail the Biden administration’s efforts to reauthorize a monitoring statute this year. He emphasized that trust is a two-way street.