By Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) – Here is a timeline of what has been disclosed about the classified documents that ended up in a temporary office used by President Joe Biden and at his home in Wilmington, Delaware:
2017
Biden begins working periodically at the Penn Biden Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington run by the University of Pennsylvania
NOV. 2, 2022
Biden attorneys discover a “small number” of records inside the office at the think tank. They inform the U.S. National Archives of their discovery, turn over the materials, and begin cooperating with the Archives and the Justice Department.
NOV. 9, 2022
The FBI begins an investigation to determine whether classified information was mishandled and whether any federal laws were broken.
NOV. 14, 2022
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland assigns John Lausch, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to the investigation and asks him to determine whether a special counsel is warranted.
DEC. 20, 2022
Biden’s personal counsel informs the Department of Justice that additional documents with classification markings were found in the president’s private library, attached to his garage at his home in Wilmington.
JAN. 5, 2023
Lausch briefs Garland on the investigation and recommends the appointment of a special counsel.
JAN. 9, 2023
The White House discloses publicly that it discovered classified documents at Biden’s temporary office at the University of Pennsylvania and says it is cooperating with investigators.
JAN. 12, 2023
Biden’s personal counsel informs the Justice Department that a document with classification markings was discovered in the president’s home in Wilmington.
Garland appoints Robert Hur, the former Trump-era U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland, as special counsel. (This story has been corrected to change the description of the number of classified records at Biden’s campus office to “small number” in paragraph 3)
(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
