Biden blames poor office pack-up job for document scandal

President Joe Biden on Wednesday blamed his classified document scandal on a lack of thoroughness by his staffers when packing up his old offices.

"One of the things that happened is that what was not done well is, as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn't do the kind of job that should have been done, to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that's there," he told PBS News Hour, per The Hill. "To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things, they're from 1974, stray papers. There may be something else, I don't know."

After rigorously condemning former President Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of classified materials, Biden appeared to have ink on his face when reports emerged that a lawyer clearing out his old office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington had discovered classified materials.

Biden indicated he was unaware of classified materials at his Penn Biden Center office, saying he was "surprised" by their discovery. Of those discovered at his Delaware home, the president defended his storage of those materials inside his garage given they were in the same place as his Corvette.

Later reports indicated that the materials included intelligence materials on Iran, the UK and Ukraine. The discovery prompted subsequent searches of other Biden offices and spaces, which turned up more classified materials.

Attorney General Merrick Garland ultimately appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to handle the DOJ's Biden-related endeavors, a development that came in part to stave off GOP accusations of judicial double standards given Garland's appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel to handle the Trump matter.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.