Two senior law enforcement officials confirmed on Tuesday that the FBI searched the offices of Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in mid-November after documents were found there.
President Joe Biden's lawyers cooperated with the search, and no search warrants were used, according to the officials. NBC News doesn't know the exact date of the search or whether classified documents or anything else of importance were found. The FBI search was first reported by CBS News.
Biden's lawyers had found some classified documents in the Penn Biden Center in an office that was used by the president on November 2. Biden's lawyers said they immediately notified the Department of Justice and the National Archives of what was discovered.
Neither the White House nor Biden's personal lawyers had previously disclosed information about the FBI's search in November. The FBI searched Biden's residence in Wilmington, Delaware earlier this month after the president's lawyers offered to give access to his home.
As a result of that search, six additional items, including documents with classified markings, were found in Biden's Delaware home, according to Bob Bauer, the president's personal attorney.
The documents at the Wilmington home appeared to be linked to Biden's time as vice president, Bauer said, as well as his tenure in the Senate, and were found after Biden s counsel offered full access to the premises.
A pair of Republican-led congressional committees in the House are investigating Biden's handling of classified documents and Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to lead the federal government's investigation.
A White House lawyer revealed in early January that a number of documents with classified markings were discovered at the Penn Biden Center in November, just a few days before the midterm elections. They had been found in a locked closet by Biden's attorneys as they prepared to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center.
The former President Donald Trump has been under investigation over his possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI agents executed a search warrant last summer at the Florida resort. The search uncovered more than 100 documents with classification markings, including some marked top secret. In December, two more documents were found with classified markings in a Florida storage facility not far from Trump's Palm Beach resort and were turned over to the FBI.
After the reports that classified documents had been in Biden's possession, former Vice President Mike Pence asked outside counsel earlier this month to look for records bearing classified markings at his home in Indiana. A small number of people were found at the residence, according to Pence's lawyers.