President Biden late Sunday weighed in for the first time regarding the discovery of classified materials at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, calling it “irresponsible.”
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Mr. Biden finally broke his silence about the matter after weeks of declining to answer questions about the controversy swirling around his predecessor.
Mr. Biden said that when heard about the classified documents being kept at Mar-a-Lago, he wondered how “anyone could be that irresponsible.”
“And I thought ‘what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?’” he added.
Mr. Biden also said that he has not been briefed on what FBI agents seized in the Aug 8. raid, because he doesn’t want to interfere in the Justice Department probe.
“I agreed I would not tell them what to do and not, in fact, engage in telling them how to prosecute or not,” Mr. Biden continued.
The president repeated his subordinates’ claims that he had “zero” advance notice before the FBI executed a search warrant on Mr. Trump’s residence and has not “asked for specifics of those documents.”
Agents seized roughly 11,000 documents, including 54 marked “secret” and 18 marked “top secret.”
The Justice Department is currently running a criminal probe into whether Mr. Trump illegally mishandled or destroyed classified government documents.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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