U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to review classified material from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president that was discovered at the Biden Center, a think tank at the University of Pennsylvania, according to CBS News.
CBS News reported that the approximately 10 documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.
The files were apparently discovered by Biden’s own attorneys when they “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.”
The attorneys said that the classified information was found in a box with other materials that were not top secret.
Biden said Tuesday that he is “surprised” sensitive documents were discovered at the think tank.
Daily Wire reports:
CNN reported that some of the classified materials that were discovered included top-secret files designated as “sensitive compartmented information,” which means that the materials include highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.
Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said that the moment the material was found – on November 2nd – that the White House’s counsel’s office immediately notified the National Archives and the material was retrieved the next day.
Upon learning about the classified material, the National Archives alerted the DOJ. The FBI is also involved in the investigation.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber said. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
The DOJ review of the material is the first step in determining what further actions could be warranted, the report said, including the possibility of a criminal investigation and appointment of a special counsel.
Lausch was appointed by former President Donald Trump and is one of only two remaining U.S. attorneys from the Trump administration, the report noted. The other holdover is David Weiss, who is conducting a criminal investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
One of the UPenn Biden Center’s most generous donors is none other than the Chinese Communist Party, according to the National Legal and Policy Center.
NLPC claims that the Biden Center recieved as much as $70M in funding from CCP-linked donations.
