On November 2, 2022, Biden's attorneys discovered the first set of classified documents in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center; they reported them that day to the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which retrieved them the next day. The classified documents included intelligence material and briefing memos on Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.
[7] In coordination with the
Justice Department (DOJ), Biden's attorneys discovered a second set of documents at Biden's home on December 20, followed by several more on January 9 and January 12, 2023.
On February 8, 2024, the Justice Department released the report by special counsel Hur, which concluded that the "evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", so "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter".
[9][10] For classified documents found in the Penn Biden Center and in the University of Delaware, Hur judged that they "could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake".
[11] For Afghanistan-related classified documents found in the garage of Biden's Delaware home, Hur stated that his investigation could not determine "why, how, or by whom" that material was kept.
[11] For Biden's handwritten notebooks found in Biden's Delaware home, which included classified content, Hur credited the possibility that Biden treated them as "personal property", given "historical practice" of the federal government allowing President
Ronald Reagan to take home his diaries as "personal records" despite their classified content.
[12][13][14] While Hur found that Biden read out classified information from his notebooks to his
ghostwriter, Hur judged that it was not proven that Biden knew that the information was classified.
[15]