Despite President Biden’s best efforts to ignore it, more sensitive documents were taken last week from one of his homes by federal authorities, adding to the growing classified document crisis. However, the White House is still working to contain the uproar.
The FBI searched Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware, on February 1 in search of illicit papers. They discovered handwritten notes throughout the four-hour inspection, and they were taken out of the building.
The White House Counsel’s Office senior advisor Ian Sams was questioned by a reporter the same day about if any other residences connected to Biden were under federal agent search. Sams remained vague, asserting that the White House was helping with the probe and said, “I think we’re providing information as this goes on.”
Q: “Has the FBI conducted any searches of any other locations associated with the president that you or the WH is aware of?”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) February 1, 2023
WH Counsel’s Office advisor Ian Sams doesn’t give a yes or no, saying “I don’t want to speak too much to the DOJ’s practices in an ongoing investigation.” pic.twitter.com/qVAPu8RiJD
Sams undoubtedly wants to underscore how open and transparent the Justice Department’s investigation of Biden’s handling of sensitive documents is, but their actions thus far have not been consistent with the evidence.
A prime example is the discovery of the initial records in Biden’s previous office at a University of Pennsylvania think tank back in November. However, the news was kept under wraps until January, leading to suspicions that the White House hid the discovery until after the midterm elections. It has since come to light that the National Archives had a news release announcing the discovery ready but was told not to release it.
Thus far, Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center and the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware, home have both been found to contain sensitive papers. Notes have now been found in his beach cottage. Although the president’s attorneys maintain that those notes were not marked as classified, this does not imply that any sensitive information was contained in them.
The White House is currently refusing to confirm whether more places are being examined. This fits into a growing trend where searches are only reported when papers are located. The administration needs to be much more forthcoming about the scope and timeline of the inquiry if it wants to demonstrate that it is acting in an entirely transparent manner.
