Former President Donald Trump is questioning the timeline of the November discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, a revelation made by President Joe Biden’s attorneys earlier this week.
“I think they knew long before Nov. 2,” Trump told John Solomon, the founder of Just the News, on his podcast published on Jan. 11.
Referring to Biden, Trump added, “I think he knew probably right from the beginning and I think a lot of it had to do with Ukraine, because that was the papers he kept. And no, I think they knew about this for a long time and they didn’t do anything about it.”
Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said on Jan. 9 that documents with classified markings were founded in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington on Nov. 2. On the same day, White House lawyers notified the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the agency took possession of the materials the next day, Sauber added.
Biden’s term as vice president ended in January 2017. A month later, he became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was given the role of leading the school’s Penn Biden Center, which officially opened in February 2018. According to the university’s website, Biden also had an office on the school’s campus in Philadelphia.
Biden was placed on unpaid leave in April 2019, when he announced he was running for president.
On Jan. 10, Biden said he was “surprised to learn” to learn that classified documents were found in his former private office.
“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said. “But I don’t know what’s in the documents.”
“I’ve turned over the boxes—they’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives,” Biden added. “And we’re cooperating fully—cooperating fully with the review.”
By Frank Fang
