CNN
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The FBI completed a search of President Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and no documents with secret markings were found, Biden’s personal attorney said Wednesday.
Bob Bauer, Biden’s attorney, did say the FBI took handwritten notes and some materials for further investigation. The search lasted three and a half hours.
“The DOJ’s planned search of the president’s residences in Rehoboth, conducted in coordination and cooperation with the president’s attorneys, has been completed,” Bauer said. “The search was conducted from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.”
“No documents with secret markings have been found,” he said.
Bauer said that, as with Biden’s search last month in Wilmington, Delaware, officers “have taken some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as vice president for further review.”
Bauer confirmed earlier this morning that detectives searched the house. The search was planned and had the “full support and cooperation” of Biden, Bauer said.
“Under DOJ’s standard operating procedures, in the interest of operational safety and integrity, it attempted to do this work without prior public notice, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer said. “Today’s search is another step in a thorough and timely DOJ process that we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have more information at the end of today’s search.”
Reporters in the coastal community saw black SUVs and sedans arrive at the house in the middle of the morning.
Biden’s personal attorneys searched Rehoboth’s home earlier on Jan. 11 and found no classified documents.
The FBI search in Rehoboth marks the third known occasion that federal agents have searched property associated with Biden to look for classified material.
The FBI previously searched Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and found what his attorney described as multiple items of classified material. That search took place on January 20. Biden’s lawyers had previously found documents in the Wilmington home and suspended their search for a specific room where additional documents were found. It’s not clear whether the documents the FBI found were in that same room or elsewhere in the house.
The FBI also searched the Washington office of the Penn Biden Center in mid-November after Biden’s lawyers first discovered classified material in a locked cabinet at the think tank.
None of the searches, including Wednesday’s in Rehoboth, required a search warrant, according to people familiar with the case. Biden’s team has emphasized that they are working with the Justice Department as the investigation into the documents issue progresses.
Biden bought his home in Rehoboth after leaving the vice presidency. He and his wife occasionally spend weekends there, most recently from January 20 to 23.
The search comes on the day the Justice Department announced that Special Counsel Robert Hur was officially beginning his job overseeing the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur takes the place of U.S. attorney John Lausch, who conducted an initial investigation that has since evolved into a full criminal investigation.
Hur, who previously served as a U.S. attorney in Maryland, was nominated for that position in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump. — profile cases, including a children’s book scandal involving then Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh that resulted in Pugh being sentenced to three years in prison.
He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for the position of U.S. attorney in 2018, and at the time received praise from both of Maryland’s Democratic senators, who expressed confidence in his ability to address critical issues facing the state.
Prior to his time with the DOJ, Hur served as a clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and also a clerk for a federal appellate court judge, Alex Kozinski.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
