Trump calls on FBI to raid Biden over classified files, misleadingly comparing the situation to documents found at Mar-a-Lago
- The discovery of classified documents in a former Biden office set Trump on a Truth Social tear.
- The former president called for the FBI to raid Biden's home, as they did his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Former President Donald Trump called on the FBI to raid President Joe Biden's "many homes" after news emerged that a US attorney is reviewing classified documents discovered at one of Biden's former offices.
Biden's personal attorneys discovered what was described as a "small number" of classified documents in a locked closet at the Penn-Biden Center, a think tank based at the University of Pennsylvania, on November 2 2022, according to a statement from Richard Sauber, Biden's special counsel.
The office was in use by Biden during his time as vice president and until 2020, Sauber said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned a US attorney to look into the matter and determine whether it warrants a full investigation, CBS News reported.
Trump reacted strongly to the development on his Truth Social platform, writing late Monday: "When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?"
Trump also shared a pointed question from Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, who wrote: "Did Biden try to conceal these documents before the midterms? How long did the federal government KNOW these documents were hidden? WHY are we just hearing about this now?"
On current information, the case bears limited parallels to the one that exploded into view after the FBI enacted a search warrant on Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in August last year, as Insider's Charles R. Davis and Erin Snodgrass reported.
Trump remains under DOJ investigation by a Garland-appointed special counsel over the matter.
In that instance, the agency made its move only after the National Archives spent more than a year requesting the return of hundreds of classified and sensitive documents.
In Biden's case, per Sauber's statement, the documents were turned over as soon as they were located.
However, Sauber's statement did not explain the two-month delay between the documents' discovery and the information being made public.
The White House did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
GOP lawmakers also jumped on the bandwagon, with suggestions that the situation was equivalent to or worse than the case against Trump.
Rep. Troy Nehls echoed Trump's call for a search on Biden's home, while Rep. Ronny Jackson claimed that Biden "knew for YEARS" about the documents.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Andy Biggs took that a step further by saying that Biden "stole" the documents.
There is no official suggestion that Biden "stole" the documents or that he was aware they were improperly stored.
Another talking point Trump shared on his feed appeared to allude to his claim that he had declassified the documents found at Mar-a-Lago — a tenuous claim that his lawyers have refused to repeat in court.
"A VP cannot declassify documents ... A president, me, can declassify," said Trump.
The Biden administration has not claimed that the newly found documents were declassified.