FBI search of Biden's Rehoboth Beach home yields no documents with classified markings, attorney says
Washington — FBI agents conducted a search of President Biden's vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Wednesday morning in relation to the probe into documents marked classified in his residence and former private office.
Bob Bauer, the president's personal attorney, said the search lasted under four hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., and no documents with classified markings were found.
"Consistent with the process in Wilmington, the DOJ took for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as Vice President," Bauer said, referring to documents found at Mr. Biden's primary residence.
Earlier Wednesday, Bauer confirmed the FBI's search of the president's Rehoboth Beach residence.
"Today, with the President's full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware," he said in a statement. "Under DOJ's standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate."
Bauer said the search was "a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate."
A source familiar with the investigation told CBS News the parameters of the consensual search by the FBI of the Rehoboth house were laid out in writing, similar to the written agreement for the Wilmington house search, which was signed by representatives of the president.
There was also an agreement in writing consenting to the mid-November search at the Penn Biden Center.
Sources familiar with the matter told CBS News the search was in relation to the classified documents investigation. No warrant was sought for the search. The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
News cameras stationed nearby captured four vehicles with Virginia license plates arriving in the neighborhood and parked at the Rehoboth home around 8:30 a.m.
The search coincided with special counsel Robert Hur's first day on the job overseeing the Biden investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to take over the case from the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who had been leading the probe since the discovery of documents with classification markings at Mr. Biden's former private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. Lawyers for Mr. Biden first found about 10 documents marked classified there on Nov. 2, a discovery CBS News was first to report.
The FBI searched the Penn Biden Center offices in Washington in mid-November, CBS News reported Tuesday. The president's lawyers then found other documents with classification markings at house in Wilmington in December, although that discovery was not disclosed until January.
An FBI search of the Wilmington home in late January yielded six additional items with classified markings, his lawyers and Justice Department officials said.
Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel's office, insisted that the administration has been both cooperative with authorities and transparent with the public.
"I think we've been pretty transparent from the very beginning with providing information as it occurs throughout this process," he told reporters Wednesday.