This story is developing…
The FBI is searching Joe Biden’s beach house in relation to the classified documents scandal.
Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, released the statement in response to the search being leaked to CBS News, which first broke the news Wednesday.
The search was consensual and planned, unlike the vicious and unconstitutional storming of Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
CBS News reporter Arden Farhi tweeted:
“BREAKING: Two sources familiar with the event tell CBS News FBI personnel are at President Biden’s Rehoboth home. One source familiar with the event tell CBS News the search is in relation to the classified documents investigation.”
“A third source familiar with the investigation tells CBS News the search was planned with Biden’s attorneys and consensual. No warrant was sought for this search.”
The Rehoboth Beach home was previously searched on January 11 by Biden’s private attorneys who claimed no classified documents were found in that search.
Bauer said in a statement that the White House resident was fully cooperating with the Department of Justice.
“Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer said.
“The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today’s search.”
Bauer’s statement:
Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware. Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate. The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today’s search.
CBS’s Rob Legare notes that this is the first day on the job for Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed by Merrick Garland to investigate Biden’s classified documents scandal.
More: The FBI search of Biden’s Rehoboth home comes as Special Counsel Robert Hur begins his first day at DOJ.
DOJ has now published a website for Hur’s office, a common step in Special Counsel investigations. (Smith + Durham also have websites.)
If the FBI finds classified documents at Biden’s beach house, it will add to the growing list of locations where Biden kept them.
The first classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center.
More classified documents were found at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware residence.
From NBC News:
Documents with classified markings were found earlier in Biden’s Wilmington residence and a Washington think tank office, but Bauer said earlier this month that no classified documents were found at the president’s beach house. Biden’s personal lawyers had searched the Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach residences for additional records, he said.
“The president’s personal attorneys located a potential record bearing classified markings at the Wilmington residence, among stored materials inside a room adjacent to the garage,” Bauer said in the earlier statement. “Once the president’s personal attorneys found this document, the president’s personal attorneys left the document where it was found and suspended their search of the specific space where it was located. Following the search at the Wilmington residence, the attorneys proceeded to the Rehoboth residence and conducted a search there. No potential records were identified at the Rehoboth Beach residence, and the attorneys returned to Washington, D.C., late in the evening.”
Watch:
