The President of the United States, Joe Biden, declared on Tuesday January 10 that he was unaware of the content of the confidential documents dating from his vice-presidency under Barack Obama (2009-2017) found in one of the offices he sometimes used as workplaces.
“I was informed of this discovery and I was surprised to learn that documents relating to the government had been taken from this office. But I don’t know what’s in the documents.”he told reporters on the sidelines of a summit with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Mexico City.
The documents were found “when my lawyers cleaned out my office at the University of Pennsylvania”, detailed Joe Biden. As soon as the lawyers saw that some were confidential, “they did what they had to do, they called the Archives [nationales] » to hand them over, according to the president.
His lawyers “cooperate fully” to the examination of these documents, he assured, hoping that this investigation ends ” soon “. Ce “small number of documents classified as confidential” was found in a “locked cupboard” at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank linked to the University of Pennsylvania, the president’s legal adviser, Richard Sauber, said on Monday.
Donald Trump calls for searches
“The documents had not been the subject of any prior request or request” and, since being handed over to the National Archives, Joe Biden’s lawyers have continued to cooperate in order to “ensure that the Archives is in possession of any documents from the Obama-Biden administration”he added.
The federal police (FBI) had carried out, in August 2022, a spectacular search of Donald Trump’s residence in Florida in order to recover thousands of documents, including a hundred classified secret-defense, taken away by the ex-president after his departure from the White House and which he had until then refused to return to the Archives.
According to press reports, these confidential documents seized at his home in Mar-a-Lago contained in particular sensitive information on China and Iran, as well as nuclear secrets.
“When will the FBI raid Joe Biden’s many residences, or even the White House? »reacted Donald Trump in a press release after the reappearance at the Penn Biden Center of classified documents dating from the time when the current president was the vice-president of Barack Obama.