The first hidden records were discovered in a former private office and home of Joe Biden in November, but it took until January for the White House to publicly acknowledge the humiliating finding – under pressure from a continuous stream of media reports. Since then, searches of the president’s house have turned up numerous more sets of secret data, threatening to overshadow the Democrat’s planned announcement that he would run for re-election in 2024.
The following is a timeline of the saga’s developments
2 November 2022
Biden’s lawyers discover “a limited number of documents” marked as classified in a locked closet while cleaning an office that he used sometimes between 2017 – following the conclusion of his term as Barack Obama’s vice president – and the commencement of his 2020 campaign.
The documents are turned over to the National Archives the next day, as US presidents and vice presidents are required to do when they leave office.
The White House makes no public statement of the discovery, which comes just a week before important midterm elections and at a time when Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump is under investigation for mishandling hundreds of secret files.
9 November 2022
The Justice Department opens an investigation into Biden’s handling of secret documents.
20 December 2022
More records are discovered by Biden’s personal lawyers in the garage of his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, where the 80-year-old president frequently spends weekends.
The lawyers notify the Justice Department and deliver the documents. The White House has yet to issue a public statement about either discovery.
9 January 2023
At response to media reports, the White House discloses for the first time that classified files were discovered in Biden’s office but makes no mention of those discovered in his house in Wilmington.
10 January 2023
At a news conference in Mexico, where Biden is on official business, the president claims he was “surprised” to learn of the confidential document discovery and has no idea what they contain.
12th of January, 2023
The White House admits that a “limited number” of sensitive documents were discovered in Biden’s Wilmington home’s storage facilities and library.
With the opposition in an uproar, US Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints Robert Hur, a Trump nominee, as special counsel to examine the incident.
According to Biden’s spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, the search for his Wilmington residence ended the night before, on January 11.
14 January 2023
In a fresh twist, the White House claims that a lawyer discovered five more pages of sensitive material in Biden’s Delaware residence just a day earlier, on January 13.
The total quantity of documents discovered in Biden’s home and Washington office is unclear at this point, with the White House referring to them variously as documents, pages, or “things,” and no information on their classification level has been published.
19 January 2023
While visiting California, Biden downplays the controversy surrounding the documents, claiming that “there’s nothing there” and that he has “no regrets.”
21st of January, 2023
Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, reports that six more sensitive documents have been discovered at Biden’s Delaware house.
Unlike earlier finds, the newest search was done by the US Department of Justice and lasted from 9:45 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., at the president’s request, according to his lawyers. The most recent discovery contained documents from Biden’s time as Vice President from 2009 to 2017, as well as his decades-long career in the Senate.