How Biden's Wilmington home became the subject of an investigation The investigation was conducted from the family's home in
How Biden's Wilmington residence became the subject of
an investigation from the family home
he told reporters that he would bring his Presidential Daily Log, a highly classified intelligence memo containing the
most important secrets of the U.S. government.
'I have a completely secure, enclosed space at my house,' Biden said before boarding Marine One. 'I'm taking the PDB
home with me today. It's locked. There is a military man with me. I read it, I lock it and give it to the military," he said.
Biden was responding to a question about whether it was appropriate for the president to take top secret
documents home. A few weeks earlier, the FBI had searched former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and
found hundreds of classified and top secret documents.
"It depends on the documents," Biden said." And it depends on how secure the room is."
The Biden residence in Wilmington is the focus of a special counsel investigation into Biden's handling of classified material,
as documents with classification codes were found in two locations: the garage and an adjacent room. Neither location
seems to fit Biden's description of a secure "sealed space" for classified material.
According to people familiar with the matter, Biden gave the go-ahead for his lawyers to conduct the search, but he himself
was not present while the lawyers looked through the various rooms, including his personal study.
The discovery followed the November discovery of 10 classified documents, including Obama-era U.S. intelligence memos
and briefing papers, in a closet in Biden's former private office in downtown Washington.
After a December search uncovered "a small number" of classified documents in the garage, a third discovery was made in
January at the Wilmington home when Biden's lawyers searched the rest of the premises. They found them in a room
adjacent to the garage. Mau tau lagi
President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom survey storm damage on January 19, 2023.
President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom survey the damage caused by the storm on January 19, 2023.
As Biden toured storm damage in California on Thursday, he explained, "We found that a handful of documents had
been filed in the wrong place.
'I think you'll find there's nothing there. I'm WPVI.
In mid-2017, when Biden's term as federal protector ended, the Secret Service agent who had been stationed at the
house for years finally moved out. The secure facility that Biden had used as Vice President to access classified material
was also finally removed. Secret Service protection was not resumed until March 2020, when Biden approached
the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Exactly when the classified documents first arrived in Biden's garage remains an open question. The government
provided Biden with 5,300 square feet of office space in downtown Washington during the first few months of his
vice presidency. Biden's transition team vacated that space on July 21, 2017, according to a statement from the
General Services Administration.
Congressional Republicans have requested home visitor records and even questioned whether Biden's son Hunter,
who uses a Wilmington address on his driver's license, could have accessed the documents while engaged in outward business.
It is unclear how much time Hunter Biden spent at the Wilmington home in the months leading up to the start of his
father's campaign. According to Hunter's memoir, Beautiful Things, the house was the site of a family tearful intervention over
Hunter's drug addiction in 2019. In the book, Hunter writes that after the intervention, he boarded a plane to California
and landed in LA in March 2019.
Both the White House counsel's office and the U.S. Secret Service said Monday that there are no visitor logs tracking guests
entering or leaving the Biden home in Wilmington.
The White House counsel said in a statement Monday morning that "as with all presidents in decades of modern history,
his private residence is private." But Biden has revived that norm and tradition, including the regular release of White House
visitor logs since the end of the previous administration."
According to New Castle County real estate records, Biden and his wife Jill purchased the home's four-acre site in 1996
for $350,000, building a 6,850-square-foot residence with three bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. Biden designed the
house himself and also did the landscaping, including planting a Leland Cypress tree that was later nearly killed by drought.
The family moved in around Christmas 1998. Watch this
The grounds include a swimming pool, a library with a Chesterfield sofa, and a sunroom overlooking a small man-made lake,
which was built by the Dupont family, one of the wealthiest families in the area.
Biden's sister, Val Biden Owens, had a home across the state line near Pennsylvania, and former Delaware Senator Ted Kaufman,
Biden's best friend and longest serving advisor, lived just minutes away.
When Biden's oldest son, Bo, was battling brain cancer, Biden considered taking out a second mortgage on the Wilmington
house to help with his son's expenses.
When Biden told then-President Barack Obama about the situation, Obama offered to lend him money instead, according to
Biden's memoir, Promise Me, Dad. According to Biden's memoir, "Promise Me, Dad," Obama said, "Don't do that. I'll give
you the money. I have it. You can always give it back."
After the Vice Presidency
After his vice presidency, Biden spent more time in Wilmington and was closer to his late son Beau's children.
The summer after he left the White House, Biden and his wife purchased a beachfront villa in Rehoboth Beach,
Delaware, and used part of the advance on Biden's upcoming book to purchase the house.
However, Biden has shared much of his time between Wilmington and the mansion he rented in
McLean, a wealthy Northern Virginia town where many former senators reside. The couple wanted to keep a
base in the Washington area while Jill continued to teach at Northern Virginia Community College. Aides often
say that Biden simply wanted to be where his wife was.
The proximity to the capital allowed him to meet regularly with advisors to chart his political future and
to travel to the Penn Biden Center, a think tank, when he met with legislators and foreign leaders. Being in
the Washington, D.C., area also made it easier for him to attend his granddaughter Maisie's soccer games.
But the Wilmington home remained the center of family activity, and it was there that Biden's eldest daughter,
Naomi Biden, called a family meeting and her grandchildren encouraged "Pop" to run for president for the third time.
As Biden's run for president began, he spent more and more time at the Wilmington home away from
the campaign, eventually moving out of the McLean home a few months into the campaign, sources said.
As the Covid 19 pandemic drove Americans into isolation, Biden retreated to his Wilmington home, and
in March 2020, a small group of campaign aides carefully donned masks and gloves and set up a temporary
studio in the basement, where Biden made zoom appearances and interviews Biden was able to make zoom
appearances and interviews. That same month, as Biden moved closer to winning the Democratic nomination,
Secret Service security was resumed. Click here
In-person meetings with advisors were replaced by conference calls with a limited number of staffers
traveling between homes. Biden interviewed most of the candidates via video chat and eventually called
Kamala Harris, then a Democratic senator representing California, from the private library of her Wilmington
residence to let her know she had been nominated.
A few months later, as election night turned into election week, the Biden family, including Hunter, Ashley,
their spouses, and grandchildren, huddled at home to watch the election results. When the election
results came in for Biden, Hunter Biden said, "Mom and Dad were at the dock on the pond, so we all ran to
the porch and hollered, 'We won! We won,'" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Back to the White House
Once Biden was elected president, the Secret Service increased security at the White House. On Wilmington's
last weekend before the Christmas vacation, Biden visited a shopping center, attended Mass, and visited thegrave of his late wife Neria and daughter Naomi on the 50th anniversary of their tragedy. Late Monday morning,
the president returned to Washington.
The next day, Biden prepared for a secret visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while his lawyers searched
the Wilmington home for classified material. After searching through the garage, they found a "small amount"
of documents with classified information not far from where he kept his 1967 Stingray Corvette.
President Joe Biden boards Marine One before departing from Fort McNair in Washington, DC on August 16, 2022.
As president, Biden has made his home in Wilmington the White House for the weekend. From there, he has called
Russian President Vladimir Putin and once had breakfast with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
According to people familiar with the president's work schedule, he does much of his work from his home in
Wilmington and travels constantly with his National Security Council aides.
He sometimes incorporates trips to Delaware into his daily schedule; on a Friday in mid-December,
he made two trips to Delaware.
That afternoon, Biden appeared at an event at the Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center in New Castle,
Delaware, to speak about improving veterans' medical benefits and funding for veterans exposed to
toxins during military service.
The event was held at the Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center. Biden then returned to the White House for a few hours
for a vacation party before driving back to Delaware that evening to his home in Wilmington, a 15-minute drive from the
National Guard Center where he gave his speech that day.
On his last weekend before the Christmas vacation, Biden visited the shopping center, attended Mass,
and visited the graves of his late wife Nelia and daughter Naomi on the 50th anniversary of their death.
Late Monday morning, the president returned to Washington.
The next day, Biden prepared for a secret visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while his lawyers searched
the Wilmington home for classified material. After searching through the garage, they found a "small amount" of documents
with classified information not far where he kept his 1967 Stingray Corvette.
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