The National Archives released emails on Friday mentioning President Biden’s lawyers handing up boxes of records in Boston, confirming a previously unknown component of the Biden classified materials incident. “Please ensure that the boxes in your office in Boston remain secure in a locked space and are not accessed by anyone.” National Archives officer Gary Stern wrote to Biden’s attorneys Patrick Moore and Bob Bauer in an email sent on November 7. This email was written five days after Biden’s lawyers claimed they found sensitive materials at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
Moore, according to CNN, sent documents from the Penn Biden Center to his Boston law office before realizing they were classified. Although the network first stated that the records removed from Boston were not believed to contain sensitive material, the newly revealed emails raise concerns regarding the nature of the papers in light of the standards demanded by the National Archives.
On Nov. 8, Stern wrote to Bauer and Moore, “we would like to pick up the boxes that are in your Boston office and move them to the JFK Library. Would it be possible to do that tomorrow?”
Moore wrote back, “Yes, it would. I will still be in DC, so I will link you with my colleague [redacted], with whom you may have dealt in the past on other matters related to the Kennedy archives.”
When asked about the Boston boxes, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she was unaware of them and sent queries to White House counsel’s office spokesperson Ian Sams, who did not answer immediately. The White House has been accused of withholding information about the issue, prompting the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate if Biden or anybody linked with him broke the law.
The discovery of the sensitive materials was kept secret for over two months, until long after the midterm elections. Biden formally acknowledged the existence of the documents on January 10 at a press conference in Mexico City, but only after CBS broke the story the day before.
In his initial remarks, Biden didn’t say that a second cache of classified documents was reportedly found Dec. 20 by his team in his Wilmington garage and gave listeners the impression only one set of records was found.
On January 12, Biden admitted that certain sensitive documents were discovered in his Wilmington garage next to his classic Corvette, but he justified his handling of the documents by saying: “My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street”
Despite the White House’s initial claim that records searches were complete, Biden’s lawyers discovered additional documents, and the FBI discovered six items with classified markings. According to his previous laptop records, Hunter Biden, who is under federal investigation, routinely visited the Wilmington document repository and even identified the property as his own location on a 2018 background check form.
In response to questioning about the scandal, the president stated, “There is no there there.” It is unknown how many documents have been recovered thus far. CNN claimed that roughly ten classified documents, some labeled “top secret,” relating to the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Iran, were discovered at the Penn Biden Center.
Republicans are pressing for additional searches, including those of the approximately 1,850 boxes containing Biden’s Senate documents at the University of Delaware.
