The last few weeks have brought multiple revelations about President Joe Biden’s storage of classified documents, which were discovered in unauthorized locations. A recent claim on social media presents another supposed development.
“BREAKING. More classified documents found at the University of Delaware, told to be the equivalent of a tractor trailer worth,” said the post by Peggy Hubbard, an Illinois Republican who ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 and in 2022.
In a comment on the post, she added, “1850 boxes worth of documents, and the university is not allowing them to be reviewed by officials? Who actually paid for the housing at the University of Delaware? China?”
She also said in the comments, “And, Hunter Biden used several to enhance his position with Ukraine.”
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
There have been no news or government reports that any classified documents were found at the University of Delaware. Biden donated 1,850 boxes of his senatorial papers to the University of Delaware, and they have been housed on the campus since June 2012, according to the university library.
When PolitiFact reached out to Hubbard for evidence of her claim, she said, “Fox News reported 1,850 boxes, the equivalent of two tractor trailers,” and added that it was “reported by the senate intel committee” via an interview with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Hubbard did not specify the interview to which she was referring. But on Jan. 29, Cruz spoke to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo and urged the FBI to examine the 1,850 boxes of Biden’s senatorial documents at the University of Delaware.
Neither Bartiromo nor Cruz said during the segment that classified documents had been found at the university.
Cruz said, “I believe the natural next step that is necessary is for the FBI to examine the 1,850 plus boxes of documents from Joe Biden’s Senate tenure that is at the University of Delaware, and I also believe it is critical for the FBI to search Hunter Biden’s home and office residences to make sure there are no classified documents there. Given all the evidence that’s piling up, we need to ascertain who’s had access to what and when.”
The records Biden donated to the university span 1973 to 2009, and the university library’s Special Collections Department processed and preserved them.
Biden’s collection includes committee reports, drafts of legislation and other files, according to a 2012 report in the university’s UDaily newspaper. In 2020, Biden said in an interview that the collection also contains speeches, policy positions and overseas interviews. He bristled at the idea that they might be made public while he was running for public office, saying they could be taken out of context.
While the National Archives handles records related to official Senate business, senators commonly donate other records to their alma maters. Biden graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965.
The university’s website says that the records would be made publicly available “no sooner than the later date of December. 31, 2019, or two years after the donor retires from public life.” Until then, it says, access is only available with Biden’s express consent.
Hubbard also claimed that the “university is not allowing” the records to be reviewed by officials. A university spokesperson told The Washington Post on Jan. 11 that it had not been asked to do any searches of its collection. The newspaper reported Feb. 1 that the spokesperson has not responded to repeated requests for comment in recent weeks.
PolitiFact reached out to the University of Delaware but received no response.
Our ruling
Hubbard claimed that “more classified documents (were) found at the University of Delaware,” the “equivalent of a tractor trailer worth.”
There have been no news or government reports that any classified documents have been found at the University of Delaware.
Biden donated 1,850 boxes of his senatorial papers to the university in 2011. Senators commonly donate records such as correspondence and speeches to their alma maters; Biden is a graduate of the University of Delaware.
The collection has not been made public and it is unknown whether any of the documents in the collection were classified.
We rate this claim False.
