The White House continues to insist that they have been transparent in the debacle of the Biden documents

The White House continued to defend its transparency and responsiveness Tuesday, even amid the latest revelation that the FBI had searched President Biden’s former think tank office in November.

That government search came days after Biden’s attorney discovered material marked classified inside his Penn Biden office in Washington, D.C., on November 2, though his team did not release the information for six weeks.

“We have released multiple statements from the White House and President Biden’s personal attorney has released multiple statements over the last month reviewing the process and agreeing to fully and fully cooperate with the Department of Justice,” said White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield. told CNN Tuesday.

“This is a process that unfolds, we respond to requests from the Department of Justice. We have made it clear from the outset that the president will cooperate with all requests that the Department of Justice has, and we have issued multiple statements.

Longtime Biden adviser was asked by CNN host Victor Blackwell about the ‘disclosure trickle’, and why he was giving the information to her instead of the other way around, following the information that became available. for experts in November.

Asked on camera if any additional documents were discovered in the search, Bedingfield replied, “That’s not something I can comment on here,” and referred the matter to the Justice Department.

A source told the network that all of the classified material that Biden’s team had uncovered had already been turned over at the time of the FBI’s search.

That search was voluntary and was not conducted under a search warrant.

The defense was just the latest time the White House has invoked its own transparency, including when asked about new information related to the discovery of classified information in Biden’s realm, first at his office, then at his Wilmington home, and then additional material discoveries in the house after an FBI search.

The DOJ has not responded to inquiries on the matter, but its own teams have uncovered additional materials that were not picked up in the initial searches.

CNN anchor Vicktor Blackwell lobbied the longtime Biden adviser about the “disclosure trickle” in the wake of the new reports.

The FBI search in November came days after Biden’s own lawyer identified classified material there, it was revealed Tuesday, in a new detail revealed by CBS News that the White House did not reveal at the time.

It was not immediately known if additional documents marked as classified were discovered during the search, which took place in mid-November, with an exact date Tuesday night not yet clear.

On November 2, days before the midterm elections, a lawyer for Biden discovered 10 documents marked “classified,” then contacted the National Archives, which alerted the Justice Department.

News of the FBI search comes as the Biden administration faces renewed pressure from Democrats to reveal the contents of classified material found at his home and office.

FBI investigators searched Penn Biden’s office for classified material in November, it was revealed Tuesday.

A Jan. 14 statement from Biden’s attorney Bob Bauer did not acknowledge the government search, only noting the “government investigation, including taking possession of any documents and reviewing any surrounding material for further review and context.” “.

A Jan. 12 statement from White House counsel Richard Sauber noted that the president’s attorneys and the DOJ were “closely coordinating” the search for the president’s home in Wilmington.

‘Following the discovery of government documents at the Penn Biden Center in November 2022, and in close coordination with the Department of Justice, the president’s lawyers have searched the president’s residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, the other locations where find files from his Vice-Presidential office could have been dispatched during the 2017 transition, Sauber said in a statement. That search turned up classified materials in a garage and one in an adjacent room.

On Friday, January 20, the FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home and discovered additional classified material.

Top Republicans have called on the government to search the president’s beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware, where Biden’s team says no classified documents were uncovered in their own search.

The White House had responded to questions last week about whether such a search could happen last weekend, when Biden was at Camp David and in Wilmington, but there is no indication that it happened.

“There has been no limit to transparency,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month during a particularly spirited White House press conference.

The repeated disclosures come after months of reporting on Donald Trump’s own resistance to government demands to return documents, and the FBI’s discovery under a Mar-a-Lago search warrant of hundreds of documents marked as “classified”.

The search of the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC came days after the discovery of the initial document.

The FBI conducted a search of Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, where classified materials were discovered in a garage and a private library.

The same garage houses Biden’s classic Corvette Stingray, along with some boxes and a lampshade.

The news broke when Biden visited New York to promote infrastructure improvements.

The president has faced repeated questions about the documents, sometimes berating reporters, sometimes defending his conduct.

Former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod is among prominent Democrats who have criticized the Biden White House for a lack of transparency, in an op-ed in which he blamed the team for violating a crisis communications mantra to ‘fully disclose all the facts’ as soon as possible.

Bauer’s statement following the Wilmington search this month made it clear that the Justice Department was involved in the search.

DOJ “took possession of materials it deemed to be within the scope of its investigation, including six items consisting of documents with classification marks and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and others from his tenure as vice president,” Bauer said in a statement at the time. He said investigators also took handwritten notes from Biden’s time as vice president.