US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden walk on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on November 7, 2021.
Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
FBI agents on Wednesday are searching the Rehoboth, Delaware, beach home of President Joe Biden as part of an investigation into the previous discovery of classified documents at other locations connected to the president, his personal lawyer said.
The planned, consensual visit is the first publicly known time that the FBI conducted a search of the Rehoboth residence. Agents did not obtain a warrant for the search.
The Department of Justice is investigating the discovery of classified documents at a private office in a Washington, D.C., think tank that Biden had used while a private citizen, and at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, previously has said that the president’s lawyers searched the Rehoboth home and the Wilmington residence on Jan. 11.
Classified records were found in Wilmington by those attorneys, but not in Rehoboth, according to Bauer.
The FBI searched the think tank office in mid-November after Biden’s personal lawyers first found classified records there on Nov. 2. The FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home on Jan. 20.
Bauer, in a statement Wednesday, said, “Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware.”
US President Joe Biden rides a bike through Gordon’s Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on July 10, 2022.
Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
“Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer said.
“The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today’s search,” Bauer said.
White House spokesman Ian Sams referred CNBC to Bauer’s statement when asked for comment on the search.
Attorney General Merrick Garland last month appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to oversee the investigation into the Biden documents.
Garland last year appointed another special counsel to investigate the discovery of classified records and other government documents at the residence of former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
FBI agents on Aug. 9 found those documents during a raid at Mar-a-Lago. In that search, agents had obtained a warrant.
Lawyers for Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, two weeks ago notified the National Archives and Records Administration that they had found a “small number” of classified documents at his home in Carmel, Indiana, on Jan. 16.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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