The FBI is searching Biden's second home in Delaware as part of the DOJ's classified documents investigation

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  • The Department of Justice said it's searching President Biden's second home in Rehoboth, Delaware.

  • It's part of an ongoing investigation into Biden's handling of classified information.

  • The DOJ says the search is happening "with the President's full support and cooperation."

The Justice Department searched President Joe Biden's home in Rehoboth, Delaware, on Wednesday as part of its ongoing investigation into Biden's handling of classified information.

Biden's lawyer, Bob Bauer, announced the search as it was underway Wednesday morning, and said in a second statement in the afternoon that it lasted roughly three and a half hours.

"No documents with classified markings were found," Bauer's afternoon statement said. "Consistent with the process in Wilmington, the DOJ took for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as Vice President."

In his earlier statement, Bauer said that FBI personnel conducted the planned search with Biden's "full support and cooperation."

"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," he said. "The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate."

Wednesday was the third time FBI personnel swept the president's property while investigating his handling of classified documents.

Biden's lawyers first discovered a cache of classified materials dating back to his time as vice president at his old office at the Penn-Biden Center on November 2, and immediately notified the White House counsel's office, which then contacted the National Archives. The documents were turned over to the Archives shortly after, and the FBI also searched the office in mid-November and began assessing whether classified documents had been mishandled.

Attorney General Merrick Garland in December appointed John Lausch, a Trump-era US attorney in Chicago, to handle the inquiry.

That same month, Biden's legal representatives told Lausch that they had uncovered additional classified materials in the garage at Biden's personal residence in Delaware.

On January 12, after reports surfaced that a second batch of classified documents had been found after the initial sweep of Biden's old office, Garland took the extraordinary step of appointing a special counsel to investigate Biden's handling of classified information. The move put Garland and the Justice Department in the unprecedented position of overseeing two parallel special counsel investigations into the current and former president's management of government records.

On January 21, Bauer announced that the Justice Department had also searched the president's home in Wilmington, Delaware, and discovered half a dozen documents marked classified. Neither Biden nor first lady Jill Biden were present during the search, which lasted 13 hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider