The storm threatens for Joe Biden, splashed by the discovery earlier this week of confidential documents dating from his vice-presidency under Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017, in one of his former offices. While he had announced that he was unaware of their content and was “surprised” by this discovery, other documents resurfaced this Wednesday, this time from his private residence in Wilmington.
Following the discovery of a dozen documents of this type in a “small locked cupboard” of the Penn Biden Center, the lawyers of the American president reviewed all his files and found “a small number of documents additional documents dating from the Obama-Biden administration and classified as confidential,” which were in the garage of his Delaware residence and an adjoining room, according to a White House statement.
The opposition denounces a “two-speed justice”, compared to the investigation against Donald Trump
An embarrassing affair, while the Democratic president boasts of his integrity in the face of the investigation which targets Donald Trump, also under investigation for having refused to return thousands of confidential documents. In the United States, a 1978 law obliges American presidents and vice-presidents to send all their e-mails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives. Joe Biden claimed to “cooperate fully” with American justice.
Even if the extent of the documents stored is different from the case against Donald Trump, the embarrassment was palpable on Thursday among the Democrats and this did not escape the opposition, who hastened to denounce a justice to two speeds. “This is a new misstep by the Biden administration which (…) treats President Trump one way and President Biden another,” said Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, for whom “Congress must investigate this matter.”
“Classified documents next to your Corvette, but what did you have in mind?” a journalist from the popular conservative channel Fox News asked Joe Biden defiantly. The president replied that he would speak “soon, God willing” on the subject. “Besides, my Corvette is in a locked garage. (…) It’s not like she’s on the street, ”added the 80-year-old Democrat, referring to his favorite car, a bottle green convertible from the 1960s.