U.S. President Joe Biden meets his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at an official welcoming ceremony before taking part in the North American Leaders' Summit at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico January 9, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Romero
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Classified documents from Joe Biden's vice-presidential days were discovered in November by the U.S. president's personal attorneys at a Washington think tank, CBS News reported on Monday, citing a White House lawyer.
The nearly 10 documents were found at Biden's office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, CBS News reported. It said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had asked the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review the classified documents which were handed over to the National Archives.
The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Biden on Nov. 2, the day before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, was quoted as confirming to CBS News.
The documents were discovered when Biden's personal attorneys "were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.," Sauber said in a statement cited by CBS News.
Reuters could not immediately contact Sauber for comment. The Justice Department and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Biden was vice president under former President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
CBS News said its sources did not disclose what the classified documents contained or their level of classification but added that they did not contain nuclear secrets.
The Justice Department is separately probing former President Donald Trump's handling of highly sensitive classified documents that he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller)
