Notebooks kept by US President Joe Biden during his time as vice president were among the items seized by the FBI during a search of his home last week as part of an investigation into his mishandling of classified documents, according to NBC.
The notebooks were taken despite not being marked as classified because they contained writing related to Biden’s official business within the Obama administration, including details of diplomatic contacts, according to the broadcaster on Saturday.
The notebooks contained a mix of personal and official records, according to the source, who added that pages containing no sensitive data could also be considered state property under the Presidential Records Act because they relate to government activities.
The person said Biden had a “large” number of these notebooks but couldn’t give an exact number.
When asked about the notebooks, Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal lawyer, said, “consistent with our view of the requirements of our cooperation with the Department of Justice in this matter, we will not comment on the accuracy of reports of this nature.”
The presence of notebooks from his time as vice president “raises questions about whether he followed procedures for preserving presidential records appropriately,” as well as “how other vice presidents and presidents who kept similar notebooks while in office have handled theirs,” according to NBC.
The FBI conducted a 13-hour search at the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and discovered six more classified documents, some of which date back to his time as a senator.
Biden was embroiled in controversy earlier this month when it was revealed that several batches of government papers, some marked ‘top secret,’ from his two terms as vice president between 2009 and 2017, were discovered in November and January at his office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank, and at his Delaware home, including in the garage. A special counsel has been appointed to investigate the president’s mishandling of the documents.
