The University of Delaware, home to a school and institute bearing President Joe Biden’s name, has engaged in a yearslong effort to keep Biden’s Senate papers concealed from the public — secrecy that is back in the spotlight following an FBI search there.
The FBI reportedly searched the University of Delaware in late January and then in early February as part of the bureau’s search for classified documents. The FBI reportedly removed multiple boxes from the university, although sources said the documents did not have classified markings on them. The FBI and Department of Justice also reportedly interviewed a university archivist who handled the Biden papers.
The Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware and the Biden Institute are both located at the school, and thousands of Biden’s Senate records are housed in the school’s library. Congressional Republicans and watchdog groups have sought access to those papers for years, to no avail.
Biden’s personal attorneys said they discovered classified documents in November at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. More classified documents were subsequently found at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home by his lawyers and later the DOJ.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was repeatedly asked Thursday about the FBI search of the University of Delaware, and she repeatedly dodged.
“I’m going to say from here, as I have been for the past couple of weeks, we’re going to continue to be prudent. I will not give any comments about this ongoing investigation. I would refer you to the Department of Justice,” she said.
House Republicans told the Washington Examiner in January that an immediate FBI search was warranted at the University of Delaware. Watchdog groups also said Biden’s papers at the school should be searched by the bureau.
The University of Delaware library website says Biden donated his Senate papers to the school “pursuant to an agreement that prohibits the University from providing public access to those papers until they have been properly processed and archived” and that “until the archival process is complete and the collection is opened to the public, access is only available with President Biden’s express consent.”
The library says “more than 1,850 boxes of archival records” from Biden’s time in the Senate arrived in June 2012 and that those records “will be available no sooner than … two years after the donor retires from public life” — meaning, at the earliest, 2026.
Conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller filed a request under the Delaware Freedom of Information Act in April 2020 to gain access, and the university rejected these requests. Judicial Watch then filed petitions with the state of Delaware and the Delaware attorney general’s office challenging the university’s denials, but Delaware sided with the school. Judicial Watch has engaged in court battles in Delaware ever since.
Judicial Watch said in January it was pushing the Supreme Court of Delaware for “limited discovery, including, at a minimum, deposing a university representative.” The group says there are 415 gigabytes of electronic Biden records, describing the boxes as filling approximately two trailer trucks.
PENN BIDEN CENTER: FROM PRESIDENCY-IN-WAITING TO CENTER OF CLASSIFIED DOCS SAGA
“Congress should follow Judicial Watch’s lead and immediately move to subpoena, secure, and examine the trove of secret Biden Senate records being held in the University of Delaware,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said last month. “Judicial Watch, in the meantime, will continue fighting in court to overcome the university’s desperate secrecy over its deal with Biden to keep these records away from the American people.”
Biden’s Senate papers at the University of Delaware became part of the 2020 campaign following allegations from former Biden Senate staffer Tara Reade, who claimed he had sexually assaulted her in 1993 and suggested a copy of the harassment complaint she says she filed with a congressional personnel office might be housed at the library.
“They aren’t true. This never happened,” Biden said of the allegations in May 2020 as he refused to open up his Delaware library files. “The papers from my Senate years that I donated to the University of Delaware do not contain personnel files. … There is only one place a complaint of this kind could be — the National Archives.”
Numerous outlets, as well as the Republican National Committee, called upon Biden to open up his papers to allow a search for evidence of the Reade allegations, which he refused to do.
House Republicans sought details about foreign funding at the University of Delaware in 2020.
The University of Delaware told the Free Beacon in 2020 that it is not subject to FOIA and thus did not need to disclose its donors.
The naming of the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration was announced in 2018. Biden gave the commencement speech at the University of Delaware in May 2022, saying, “I think even my professors would be surprised if there’s a Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. … But no one is more surprised than me.”
The Biden Institute, part of the school renamed after Biden and established in 2017, describes itself as “a world-class intellectual center and destination for scholars, activists, policymakers, and national leaders.” The institute is chaired by Valerie Owens Biden, Joe Biden’s sister. The Free Beacon reported this month that, since the institute’s establishment, “the University of Delaware has received $6,704,250 in funding from China.”
Multiple current Biden administration officials previously worked for the Biden Institute.
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The school launched its University of Delaware in China program in early 2021 in coordination with the campus of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, located near Shanghai.
