Biden snaps back at Peter Doocy on storing classified documents next to Corvette in his garage

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Joe Biden clashed with a Fox News reporter after he was asked why classified documents had been found stored next to his Corvette sports car.

The president tussled with the conservative channel’s Peter Doocy after the White House admitted that Mr Biden’s personal lawyers had found the Obama-era items stored in the garage of his home.

Special Counsel to the President, Richard Sauber said on Thursday that Mr Biden’s attorneys completed a search of the president’s two Delaware residences – his primary home in Wilmington and a vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware – in consultation with the Justice Department.

“Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?” Mr Doocy asked the president at a White House event.

Mr Biden, who says that he is “cooperating fully” with the Justice Department review and that he takes classified material “seriously”, strongly defended himself.

“My Corvette’s in a locked garage so it’s not like it’s sitting on the street,” responded Mr Biden.

“So the material was in a locked garage?” Mr Doocy pressed.

“Yes, as well as my Corvette,” Mr Biden said.

The documents reportedly date back to Mr Biden’s second term as vice president under Barack Obama, and Mr Biden’s lawyers say that they immediately notified the National Archives and Records Administration.

The discovery of documents with classification markings at Mr Biden’s former office comes as the Department of Justice is considering whether to charge Mr Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, over his alleged unlawful retention of national defence information at his Palm Beach, Florida club and residence.

That probe is being overseen by Jack Smith, a special prosecutor named by Attorney General Merrick Garland shortly after the November midterm election to supervise the Trump documents probe and the department’s investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Mr Garland has instructed a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor in Illinois with overseeing a review of how the Obama-era records ended up in Mr Biden’s property.

On Thursday afternoon, Mr Garland named a separate special counsel to oversee the investigation into the Obama-Biden era classified documents.