By Nandita Bose and Matt Spetalnick

Washington - January 21, 2023

In a statement, the lawyer for US President Joe Biden said

that the US Department of Justice conducted a new search of President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday, during which six more files were found, including documents with classified labels

Some of the classified documents date back to the period when Biden was in the US Senate, where he represented Delaware from 1973 to 2009, according to his lawyer Bob Bauer. Bauer said that other documents were from his tenure as vice president in the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2017.

The Justice Department, which conducted a search that lasted more than 12 hours, also took down some notes that Biden personally handwritten as vice president, according to the lawyer.

The president offered access "to his home to allow the Justice Department to conduct a search of the entire building for possible records of the vice president's post and possible classified materials,"Bauer said.

Neither Biden nor his wife were present during the search, the lawyer said. Biden is in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the weekend.

Justice Department investigators coordinated the search with Biden's lawyer early on, and the president's personal lawyers and White House lawyers were present at the time, Bauer said.

Other secret government records were discovered this month at Biden's headquarters in Wilmington, and in November in a private office that he kept at a Research Center in Washington, D.C. after finishing his term as vice president in the Obama administration in 2017.

In his statement, Bauer did not explain where the documents were found in the Wilmington home. The previously secret documents were found in the garage of the house and in a nearby storage space.

The research shows that federal investigators are rapidly moving forward with the investigation of classified documents found in Biden's possession. This month, US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.

Special counsel Robert Hoare, who was appointed during the operation, is also investigating how the president and his team handled classified documents dating back to the Obama era that were recently found in Biden's private possession.

Biden's lawyers also found all the documents that were discovered before the search conducted by the Justice Department on Friday, according to the White House. The recent search was the first time that federal law enforcement authorities conducted a search for government documents at Biden's private addresses, according to publicly released information.

Republicans compared the investigation to the ongoing investigation into how former President Donald Trump handled classified documents after his presidency. The White House noted that Biden's team cooperated with the authorities in their investigation and handed over those documents. Trump, meanwhile, resisted doing so until an FBI search in August at his Florida resort.

The search increases the legal and political risks for the president, who insisted that the previous discovery of classified materials in his former home and office would ultimately be considered illogical.

Biden said on Thursday that he had "no regrets" about not publicly disclosing before the midterm elections the discovery of classified documents in his former office and that he believed the matter would be resolved.

Since the Biden documents were discovered, Trump has complained that Justice Department investigators are treating his successor differently.