President Joe Biden admitted Wednesday that at least one document seized by federal investigators from his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware, is nearly 50 years old.
At the end of an interview with Biden, PBS anchor Judy Woodruff asked the president why his condemnation of former President Donald Trump for retaining classified documents — Biden called it "totally irresponsible" — does not also apply to him.
"What I was talking about was what was laid out," Biden said, referring to the infamous picture the Justice Department included in court documents showing classified documents on the floor of Mar-a-Lago.
But ignoring the fact that some of the documents found at his former Washington office reportedly contained highly classified intelligence markings, Biden then tried to defend himself by noting that he "voluntarily" allowed federal agents to search his home.
"In the best of my knowledge, the kinds of things they picked up were things that from 1974 and stray papers," Biden admitted. "There may be something else, I don't know."
1974? At the time, Biden was a U.S. senator. Indeed, Biden's lawyer admitted that in one search of Biden's home last month, FBI agents seized documents from Biden's days in the Senate, but did not provide more details about what was taken. Biden did not elaborate on that either, including whether the nearly 50-year-old document and other "stray papers" were classified.
It's not clear, however, why or how federal agents could, without a search warrant, seize documents that were not classified or not otherwise official property of the U.S. government.
Biden talks economy, China, political division in exclusive interview with Judy Woodruff youtu.be
Biden followed up his eyebrow-raising admission by abdicating responsibility for mishandling classified documents.
"One of the things that happened is that what was not done well is as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn't do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that's there," he said, referring to his staff members.
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