Fact check: Biden makes three false claims about his handling of classified information

CNN —

President Joe Biden gave a press conference Thursday night after the release of a report from special counsel Robert Hur, who announced that Biden would not face charges over his handling of classified information from prior to his presidency.

Biden was combative, forcefully rejecting Hur’s claims that he has a poor memory. But the president was also repeatedly inaccurate, making three claims that were clearly contradicted by Hur’s report.

Here is a fact check.

Where the classified material was stored

Biden sought to contrast his handling of classified material with that of former President Donald Trump, who faces felony charges for willfully retaining classified documents. (Hur agreed that there were major distinctions between the two cases.) But while Biden correctly noted that the documents were in a private home that is very different from the Mar-a-Lago social club where Trump lives, Biden embellished his argument with a false claim.

Biden said: “All the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to be locked.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is not true. The special counsel’s report says that while some of the classified documents were found in cabinet drawers in Biden’s Delaware home, other classified documents, about Afghanistan, were found in an “unsealed” and “badly damaged” box sitting in his garage alongside an assortment of other items the special counsel described as “household detritus.” The report includes a photo of the box.

Hur wrote that investigators looked into the possibility that the Afghanistan-related documents found in the box were previously stored in a filing cabinet when Biden lived in a rented home in Virginia before moving out in 2019.