FBI finds no classified docs at Biden's beach house

Handwritten notes and other material was taken for further examination

WASHINGTON The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched U.S. President Joe Biden's beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., on Wednesday without finding any classified documents, the president's personal attorney said.

Agents did take some handwritten notes and other materials relating to Biden's time as vice-president for review.

The attorney, Bob Bauer, said FBI agents spent three and a half hours searching the home and that, “No documents with classified markings were found.”

He added, “Consistent with the process in Wilmington, the DOJ took for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as vice-president.”

Wednesday's search marked the third time in as many months that agents have scoured Biden's property in search of classified documents that he may have improperly held.

It is the latest discomfiting moment for a president who has sought to contrast his sensitivity to rule-following with that of his predecessor Donald Trump, who faces a criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents. It shows that an investigation that had simmered quietly for weeks was continuing rather than fading away as Biden, who has said he was surprised by the records discovery, presumably hoped.

The fact the FBI undertook the search reflected the Justice Department's determination to retrieve any and all possible classified items rather than rely on assurances that such documents had been located.

In a statement revealing the FBI search, Bauer sought to portray the president and his team as fully transparent and co-operative. He described the search as “planned” and “a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate.”

He did not mention Trump by name, but the statement seemed aimed at juxtaposing the Biden investigation with the Trump case, where months of fruitless Justice Department efforts to recover all the classified records taken to the former president's Florida estate, Mar-a-lago, culminated in an August search warrant and the removal of roughly three dozen boxes of documents and other items.

Searches of Biden's former office and Delaware homes, by contrast, have all been done voluntarily and without a warrant.

The latest search follows the FBI'S 13-hour, top-to-bottom check of his Wilmington, Delaware, home, where agents located documents with classified markings from his time as a vice-president and senator and also took possession of some of his handwritten notes.

One week earlier, Biden's personal lawyers revealed that they had found a document bearing classified markings while searching the Wilmington property but said they had not found others during a separate inspection of the Rehoboth Beach home.

The White House did not disclose the Justice Department's investigation until last month, when it acknowledged the Nov. 2 discovery of a “small number” of classified documents by Biden lawyers as they closed an office at the Penn Biden Center, a thinktank affiliated with the Ivy League school.

Though officials did not say so at the time, news media reported on Tuesday that the FBI had conducted a voluntary search of that office later that month.

The Justice Department has historically brought criminal charges related to mishandling of classified records only when it can establish, among other things, that a person acted knowingly in improperly removing or storing sensitive records.