DOJ rejected plan to have FBI monitor Biden lawyers' search for classified docs: WSJ

The United States Department of Justice considered having the Federal Bureau of Investigation oversee lawyers representing President Joe Biden as they searched for classified documents on his properties, but ultimately rejected the idea, reports the Wall Street Journal.

According to WSJ's sources, the DOJ decided against having the FBI monitor Biden's lawyers since it believed that they were already cooperating with the investigation into how classified documents came to be improperly stored in multiple locations, including at the president's home in Delaware and at his office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

"The two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them," WSJ reports. "Those deliberations, which haven’t previously been reported, shed new light on how the Biden team’s efforts to cooperate with investigators have thus far helped it avoid more aggressive actions by law enforcement."

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The DOJ initially did not get the FBI involved in its attempts to retrieve classified documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and only decided to take more aggressive steps after learning that Trump's lawyers had falsely asserted that they had turned over all classified materials when in reality the former president was still stashing multiple boxes of top-secret government documents on his property.

After that, the DOJ got a search warrant for the documents and had the FBI conduct a search that successfully retrieved the boxes.