President Joe Biden stated on Tuesday that he had no idea that government records from his time as vice president, including some classified documents, had been transferred to his private office after he left public service.
Biden stressed that he has no idea what is in the records discovered at a Washington, DC office he used as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I was surprised to learn there were any government records that were taken there to that office," Biden said at a news conference in Mexico City.
U.S. intelligence memoranda and briefing materials that covered subjects like Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom were among the classified documents, according to a source familiar with the matter, as reported by CNN on Tuesday.
Another source told the news site that Biden was unaware of the existence of the records and only learned about them after his personal attorneys contacted the White House counsel's office.
The source cited the president's team's caution against appearing to interfere given the Justice Department's ongoing investigation as the reason why Biden is uninformed of what is in the documents and why he is unaware of it.
According to the White House, the president's personal attorneys discovered the documents while packing files in November, and the counsel's office immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration.
Biden's lawyers turned over the records to the National Archives the day they were discovered and are still cooperating in the case being investigated by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, the White House said.
The president stated that his attorneys "did what they should have done" by contacting the Archives right away.
"People know I take classified documents, classified information seriously," Biden added, saying that the documents were found in "a box, locked cabinet - or at least a closet."
Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House counsel's office, responded to specific inquiries about why the Biden campaign did not disclose the discovery of classified documents in November at Biden's private office, saying that they are "limited in what we can say" at this time because the Justice Department is looking into the matter and "further details" may be shared in the future.
"This is an ongoing process under review by DOJ, so we are going to be limited in what we can say at this time. But we are committed to doing this the right way, and we will provide further details when and as appropriate," Sams said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
The White House has called a conference call with top allies to discuss the inquiry into the classified documents, in the hopes of quelling increasing criticism and suspicions over the discovery.
On the call, a top official underlined how the president's counsel quickly contacted NARA. The White House call did not provide an explanation for why this was not revealed at the time or since November.
Given the investigation's sensitivity, the White House is still assessing how much they can - and should - communicate about these materials. According to aides, this was only known to a small group of people until news reports on Monday.
