FIVE ADDITIONAL PAGES of classified material have been found at Joe Biden’s family home in Delaware, the White House said today, in a new twist in a politically sensitive affair for the president.

These pages, dating from Biden’s time as Barack Obama’s vice president, were found after White House lawyer Richard Sauber visited the home on Thursday, he said in a statement.

Sauber said he made the trip to oversee the transfer to the Justice Department of a first batch of documents found on Wednesday.

Presidential lawyers searching the garage at the Delaware home found a document marked classified in the garage.

As these attorneys lacked the necessary security clearance to read it, they notified the Justice Department, Sauber said.

A 1978 law obliges US presidents and vice presidents to hand over their emails, letters and other official documents to the National Archives.

Sauber said he does have the necessary security clearance so he went to the Delaware house and, in transferring the earlier documents to Justice Department officials, found the other five pages.

Others papers had been found earlier at Biden’s former office at a Washington think tank.

Amid rising furore over the discoveries in Washington, US Attorney General Merrick Garland named an independent prosecutor to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.

The issue is an unwelcome distraction for Biden as he prepares to announce whether he will seek a second term.

The disclosures have prompted comparisons to the case, also being investigated by a special counsel, of former president Donald Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified materials at his Florida home and his alleged obstruction of government efforts to get them back.

“I take classified documents and classified material seriously. We’re cooperating fully (and) completely with the Justice Department’s review,” Biden told reporters on Thursday.

“As part of that process, my lawyers reviewed other places where documents from my time as vice president were stored, and they finished the review last night.”

The first cache of Biden documents was discovered in November, a week before last year’s midterm elections but only acknowledged by the White House on Monday, prompting accusations from Republicans that it was kept secret for political reasons.

© AFP 2023