There was also a memo from Biden to President Barack Obama, as well as two briefing memos preparing Biden for phone calls – one with the British prime minister, the other with Donald Tusk, the former prime minister of Poland who served as president of the European Council from 2014-2019. It was a manilla folder marked “VP personal” that contained one of the classified documents that was first discovered last November by the Biden attorney, setting off the chain of events, according to one person familiar with the find.Īmong the items from Biden’s time as vice president are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memorandums and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to that person. Garland appoints special counsel in Biden documents investigationĪt a minimum, the placement of the secret documents alongside “personal and political papers” reveals a records retention process gone awry. This account of how Biden’s aides wound down his vice presidential office, as well as new details about the classified documents they placed with personal items, is based on interviews with former and current administration officials and others familiar with the process.Īttorney General Merrick Garland, left, and President Joe Biden AFP/Getty Images, Reuters Those questions are now central to a special counsel investigation into Biden’s handling of classified material after leaving the White House in 2017. The White House and the now-president’s lawyers have refused to say who, precisely, packed and moved the material. Those competing objectives – to use his office until the final minutes even as it was obliged to shut down – made for a muddled and hurried process that left aides packing boxes of documents and papers late into the night, even as more material kept arriving.Įxactly how a small batch of classified documents ended up in boxes of Biden’s personal effects remains an open question. Aides scrambled to pack up his workspaces in the West Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and at his official residence, the Naval Observatory. Partly to wrap up his policy portfolios, partly to tout his accomplishments, and partly to occupy himself following the death of his son a year earlier, Biden thrust himself into work in a final sprint to mark what then appeared to be the end of a four-decade run at the highest levels of government.Īs Biden was busy keeping busy, however, his office was shutting down. The early days of 2017 were a whirlwind for Vice President Joe Biden: swearing in a new Congress, a surprise Medal of Freedom, a speech at Davos and one final trip to Ukraine.
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