White House uses special counsel probe to duck questions about Joe Biden’s handling of govt secrets

The White House on Tuesday refused to divulge new details about the search for more classified documents at President Biden’s homes in Delaware.

After gathering reporters on a conference call, White House spokesman Ian Sams said the special counsel probe prevented him from providing more information about the misplaced government secrets from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president in the Obama administration.

“In terms of the future of this, I would say these are going to be decisions for the special counsel for how to conduct their own investigation,” said Mr. Sams. “I don’t want to get ahead of investigative decision-making that’s being done by the department.”

So far, Mr. Biden’s lawyers acknowledged they found a “small number” of classified documents in November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement where the president kept an office after serving as vice president.

His lawyers then searched his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at least three more stashes of classified documents, including some stored in the garage alongside Mr. Biden’s 1967 Corvette Stingray.

Mr. Biden’s lawyers are currently looking for more misplaced classified documents at his Willmington home and his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Federal law strictly forbids the removal or retention of classified documents or materials outside secured locations without authorization, which Mr. Biden would not have had during his tenure as vice president in the Obama White House.

The discoveries prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Robert Hur, a former U.S. Attorney in Maryland during the Trump administration as a special counsel to oversee the investigation.

During the conference, Mr. Sams repeatedly cited the special counsel investigation as a reason he couldn’t provide more information about the classified document discovery, including whether more could be out there.

“These are considerations that we’ve had to take into account while we’ve been trying to answer questions thoroughly and completely but the very nature of being cooperative with an ongoing investigation means that we need to let the investigation play out,” Mr. Sams said, adding that the White House doesn’t want to provide “incomplete” information to the press.

He also went on the offense after roughly a week of silence on the matter from the president. Scrambling to tamp down Republican efforts to taint Mr. Biden’s presidency with the documents controversy, he blasted GOP lawmakers and accused them of playing up the situation for political gain.

He drew a comparison to the classified documents found at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, saying Republicans were silent about that matter.

“They’re faking outrage even though they just defended the former president’s actions,” Mr. Sams said.