By JK Miller and Colin Long Associate Press
APTOS – A frustrated President Joe Biden said Thursday he had "nothing" when repeatedly asked about the discovery of classified documents and official records at his former home and office.
"We found that some of the documents were incorrect," Biden told reporters, who questioned him during a tour of California about storm damage. "We immediately submitted them to the archive and to the Ministry of Justice."
Biden said he is "fully cooperating and looking forward to resolving this quickly."
"I don't think you'll find anything there," he said. "there is no one."
The White House announced that Biden's lawyers have found classified documents and official records four times in the past several months: on November 2 at the offices of the Ben Biden Center in Washington, then on November 20 and on January 11 and 12 at the office of the President. The bookstore.
Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Hoare as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department's investigation into the documents.
The revelation complicates a federal investigation into former President Donald Trump, who, according to the Justice Department, received hundreds of classified records when he left the White House in early 2021 and for months resisted calls to turn them over. return them to the government.
The two cases are different: Biden, for example, voluntarily turned over the documents when they became available. But the issue weighs heavily on the president and his staff, who have repeatedly said they acted quickly and appropriately after the documents were revealed and are working to be as transparent as possible, even as key questions remain unanswered.
Biden expressed frustration with the document as he surveyed the damage on the coast, telling reporters it "concerned me" when asked about California's handling of the classified "We've got a serious problem here" material.
"Why don't you ask me about it?" the pressure
The Biden team has been criticized for its tainted disclosure: The documents were not shared with the public until early January, and gradually more intelligence was revealed after that. This sometimes led to heated arguments between reporters and White House press secretary Karen Jean-Pierre in the White House briefing room. He ran into trouble last Friday when he claimed all the documents had been found, only to learn more at the end of the week.
On Thursday, Biden said he had "no regrets" about how and when the public learned about the documents.
He said: I am following what the lawyers told me.