FBI Finds No Classified Documents in Search of Biden’s Delaware Beach House

The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday and found no classified documents.

Summary

The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday and found no classified documents.

• The three-and-a-half-hour search comes amid a Department of Justice probe into President Biden’s handling of classified documents dating to his time as senator and later vice president.
• Although no classified documents were found, FBI investigators took handwritten notes and other “materials relating to Biden’s time as vice president” for further scrutiny.
• According to a statement from Bob Bauer, one of Biden’s attorneys, the FBI searched the beach house from 8:30am until 12:00pm on Wednesday in cooperation with the president’s legal team.
• The FBI search comes on special counsel Robert Hur’s first day overseeing the DOJ investigation into Biden’s handling of classified information.
• The search of the Rehoboth Beach house is at least the third FBI search of a property connected to Biden. FBI investigators searched Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home in January after classified documents were discovered there.
• The FBI also searched the Penn Biden Center in mid-November after classified documents were found there on Nov. 2, CBS News reported on Tuesday.
• The White House on Wednesday refused to rule out whether there would be more FBI searches of properties connected to President Biden.
• The comments from spokesman Ian Sams sounded a more cautious note than press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s assertion earlier this month that a search of Biden’s home was “complete” days before more documents were found there.

• Anonymous “people familiar with Mr. Biden’s reaction” to the classified document imbroglio told the New York Times the president “has become angry and frustrated by the situation, in particular by the comparison to Mr. Trump.”
• CNN noted none of the at least three FBI searches of Biden-connected properties required a warrant and were conducted with the cooperation of the president’s legal team. However, “the White House on Wednesday would not answer whether the FBI has searched any other locations associated with Biden.”
• Politico reported the latest FBI search “raised fresh frustration among some Democrats over why the searches weren’t conducted sooner and more thoroughly.”

• The Wall Street Journal reported, “After the initial discovery at the Washington think tank, the Justice Department considered having FBI agents monitor the Biden legal team’s search for additional classified documents at the president’s homes, but decided against it.”
• Fox News noted “the White House has repeatedly declined to comment on the contents of the classified records, as well as the levels of the classification.” The administration is even stonewalling attempts from lawmakers from both parties for more information about the documents found at Biden-connected properties.
• National Review’s Andrew McCarthy observed: “At this late date, there really should not have been any classified documents to find at Rehoboth. The Biden team had three months’ notice that this day was coming. Prosecutors and the FBI are not in the habit of giving suspects months of notice that they’re coming to conduct a search for incriminating evidence.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2023