Monday, news broke that Biden’s personal attorney had confirmed that classified documents had been located and seized in a Biden think tank office. The documents, according to CBS News, were identified by Biden’s personal attorney on November 2nd just before the midterm elections at Biden’s think tank, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Engagement in Washington, D.C. Though it has also been reported that those documents were turned over to the National Archives soon after.
Biden’s Reaction: Biden recently addressed the matter, while at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City. While taking reporter questions, according to Fox News, he stated “let me get rid of the easy one first … People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously. They [his personal attorneys] did what they should have done. They immediately called the [National Archives] … turned them over to the Archives, and I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office … but I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were.”
What were these Documents? The documents, which were from Biden’s time as Vice President, were discovered on November 2 at the Penn Biden Center in an office Biden occupied during his time, between 2017-2019, as the Universities Benjamin Franklin Presidential Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. The documents have been reported by CNN to be “Obama-Biden administration records,” with some of them being marked as top-secret with sensitive compartmented information.
In addition: According to Fox, at least 10 senior Biden administration officials were hired to their positions, either current or former, after they had worked at the Penn Biden Center. And a few higher-up officials had ties to the center. “Spencer Boyer, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy, was a senior fellow; Jeffrey Prescott, the deputy to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was a strategic consultant; Ariana Berengaut, a senior adviser to the national security adviser, was a director; Michael Carpenter, the U.S. representative to the organization for security and cooperation in Europe, was a managing director; Juan Gonzalez, a special assistant to the president, was a senior fellow; and Carlyn Reichel, a special assistant to Biden and senior director for speech writing and strategic initiatives, was the director of communications at the Penn Biden Center. Brian McKeon was a senior director at the think tank and was the deputy secretary of state for management and resources until last month.“
