FBI Searches Biden's Delaware Home, No Classified Documents Found

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Facts

  • After a 3.5-hour FBI search of US Pres. Joe Biden's home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. on Wednesday, Biden's lawyer Bob Bauer said the "planned search" found no classified documents, but agents took "for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as Vice President."
  • This comes as classified documents were discovered at one of Biden's other homes and a private office. According to Bauer, the FBI "sought to do this work without advance public notice" and the president "will continue to fully support and facilitate" the investigation.
  • Biden most recently visited the beach house on the weekend of Jan. 20-23 to avoid the then-ongoing search at his Wilmington, Del. home. Both residences reportedly lacked Secret Service protection for several months following his vice presidency.
  • Wednesday's search came one day after multiple media outlets reported that the FBI had already searched the president's old Washington, DC, office after a small number of classified documents were found there last November.
  • The FBI's Jan. 20 search of Biden's Wilmington home confiscated multiple documents dating back to the president's time as vice president and US Senator.
  • US Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed special counsel Robert Hur to probe Biden's potential mishandling of the documents. Former Pres. Donald Trump is also still under investigation for classified documents found at his Florida residence, and former VP Mike Pence recently revealed that he found classified material at his Indiana home.

Sources: ABC News, NBC, New York Post, The Hill, and Daily Wire.

Narratives

  • Republican narrative, as provided by Townhall. After already waiting weeks to reveal the original batch of classified documents found in Biden's DC office, the FBI again took its sweet time to finally search his Rehoboth Beach house. You would think the FBI would want to quickly sweep the house after discovering that Hunter Biden was using his father's Wilmington mansion as an unofficial office to conduct business with some of the same countries cited in the documents. The hypocrisy after the treatment of Trump is dumbfounding.
  • Democratic narrative, as provided by Newsweek. There’s a big difference between the Trump and Biden cases. Trump violated the law by possessing classified papers and attempting to cover up his actions. The former president is facing a serious investigation because he knowingly held sensitive information and actively worked to keep it from the archives. Biden did neither of those things and is being fully cooperative with the investigation, so GOP claims of hypocrisy are unfounded.
  • Cynical narrative, as provided by CNN. Neither Trump nor Biden should have ever mishandled any classified information, and both should be investigated per the severity of their violations. However, the "overclassification" of US government documents has been raised for over a decade, and the bureaucracy of the federal government has produced an administrative nightmare. There must be accountability and reforms to a flawed classification system.