What We Know: DOJ assigns U.S. Attorney to oversee review of classified docs found in Biden’s private office

The United States Department of Justice has assigned a US Attorney to oversee the review of a handful of classified documents from President Biden’s time as Vice President that were found in his private office at a think tank founded by Biden in 2018.

The documents, which were uncovered a few days prior to the November 2022 midterm election, were immediately turned over to the National Archives.

They were reportedly found when personal lawyers for the president were cleaning out a private office used by Biden at his Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, located in Washington, DC. 

A source close to the situation told CNN exclusively on Tuesday the documents included various materials related to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom from the Obama era.

A preliminary report delivered to US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the documents were found in about four boxes among unclassified materials, and spanned the years of 2013 to 2016. There were a total of ten documents marked classified.

Garland assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John R. Lausch Jr. to oversee the review of the documents found in Biden’s private office. The situation has drawn parallels to former president Donald Trump’s illegal handling of classified White House documents that were the subject of an FBI raid on Trump’s private residence in Florida last year.

Trump was found to have been in possession of hundreds of classified documents that had been moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago resort after the end of Trump’s presidency. The raid was carried out after months of attempts to obtain the documents from Trump.

Asked by reporters about the documents while on a trip to Mexico for a summit with other North American leaders, Biden remained silent.