A recent investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Hur revealed that President Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials" after his vice presidency.
However, Hur recommended that no charges be brought against the President.
The investigation found that sensitive documents from Biden's time as Vice President and Senator were improperly stored at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware, and his pre-presidential office in Washington D.C., provided by the University of Pennsylvania.
In contrast to the media-frenzied investigation of former President Donald Trump on similar grounds, Hur's probe into President Biden, 81, was notably discreet.
Trump, 77, who is seeking a rematch against Biden in the upcoming November election, has alleged a double standard. The former President is currently facing 40 criminal charges and a potential maximum penalty of 450 years in prison for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
In August 2022, the FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to retrieve documents. This occurred just months before the revelation that Biden had stored classified documents in various locations, including his home garage, which lacked Secret Service protection for a period of time.
Trump is accused of obstructing attempts by the National Archives to retrieve the documents, arguing that he was entitled to keep them under the Presidential Records Act.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate Biden's handling of records dating back to his vice presidency and Senate years on January 12 of last year. This followed sequential admissions of new discoveries by the White House.
Biden was interviewed by investigators in October, approximately a year after he criticized Trump as "irresponsible" for retaining classified documents.
Biden's lawyers reported that they initially found classified documents on November 2 while clearing out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill. The discovery, made six days before the midterm elections, was kept quiet until CBS News broke the story on January 9.
Additional classified documents were found on December 20 in Biden's Wilmington garage, followed by a series of discoveries at the home, including by the FBI, which also searched Biden's vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Biden attempted to downplay the controversy, telling PBS in February, "To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things that from 1974, stray papers."
"There is no there there," Biden told reporters in January.
Biden first publicly acknowledged the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center during a press conference in Mexico City on January 10. However, he did not mention that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage.
On January 12, Biden admitted that records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, but denied being reckless with the nation's secrets.
"My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it's not like they're sitting out on the street," Biden said.
The White House stated at the time that searches for records were complete, but additional documents were found by Biden's lawyers. An FBI search found six more items with classification markings.
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