The classified documents discovered in President Joe Biden’s private office last fall include American “intelligence memos and briefing materials” related to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom, CNN reported.
Sources told CNN the documents were dated to the second term of the Obama administration, from 2013 to 2016. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, conducted business in Ukraine during those years.
The sources confirmed the documents were discovered in boxes that also contained unclassified documents. Many of the documents in those boxes also fell under the Presidential Records Act, and thus should have remained in possession of the U.S. government.
According to CNN, some of the classified documents were marked “top secret”:
Fewer than a dozen classified documents were found at the office, another source told CNN. It is unclear why they were taken to Biden’s private office. The classified materials included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources.
Biden was allegedly unaware the documents were in his private office, and he allegedly doesn’t know what information the documents contain.
If Biden did not know they were there, the question then becomes: Who, having access to highly classified information, stored the documents in Biden’s private office without his knowledge?
One thing, however, is clear. Despite the gnashing of teeth over Donald Trump retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Democrats are playing a game of whataboutism, stressing this instance of misuse of classified information is not comparable to Trump’s because fewer documents are involved, Biden allegedly did not know they were there, and Biden’s attorneys immediately turned over the documents to the National Archives.
Meanwhile, it’s not clear whether the documents that Biden’s attorneys handed over are all of them. The only documents turned over were those immediately discovered to be marked with classified headings. It’s not clear if government investigators searched for more classified documents.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned U.S. Attorney John Lausch Jr., a Trump appointee, to investigate the situation.