(CNN) – between the classified documents Since Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president was discovered in a private office last fall, there have been US intelligence memos and media materials dealing with topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A total of 10 classified documents were found last year in Biden’s private academic office and dated between 2013 and 2016, according to the source.
The boxes containing these secret records also contained personal documents from the Biden family, including materials about funeral arrangements for Biden. Beau BidenThe source told CNN.
CNN reported earlier that US Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned the US Attorney General in Chicago, a position from the Trump administration, to investigate the matter. Garland took this action after receiving a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The documents were discovered on November 2, just six days before the midterm elections, but the matter wasn’t revealed until Monday.
The source told CNN that Biden’s personal attorney was closing the downtown Washington office that Biden used as part of his work with the University of Pennsylvania. The lawyer saw an envelope with markings indicating that it was the personal documents of the former vice president, opened the envelope and realized that there were classified documents inside. The source said the lawyer sealed the envelope and called Nara.
After contacting NARA, the source said, the Biden team turned over several boxes as a precaution, despite the fact that many of them contained personal items.
The Department of Justice must decide how to proceed
Lausch Jr. has already completed the initial part of his investigation, a source familiar with his work told CNN, and provided his preliminary findings to Garland.
This means that Garland now faces a crucial decision about how to proceed, including whether or not to open a full criminal investigation. Garland was also personally involved in some key decisions related to the investigation of the Trump documents and the decision to send the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago.
Garland decided that Lash would conduct the investigation into the Biden documents because he is one of two remaining US attorneys hired by Trump, and to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest because he was not hired by Biden, the people briefed on the matter said. .
Lausch was one of the few Trump-era officials not asked to resign after Biden’s inauguration in 2021, and both Illinois Democratic senators supported the decision to keep him in office, in part because he was handling the politically sensitive investigation of Michael Madigan, the former president. The Illinois House of Representatives accused of corruption.
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