Thousands of documents pertaining to Joe Biden’s nearly 40-year career in the U.S. Senate are still unavailable to the public after one of the preliminary release deadlines agreed to by the former vice president passed on Tuesday.
The documents, which purportedly fill 1,875 boxes and include 415 gigabytes of electronic records spanning Biden’s time in Congress between 1973 through 2009, were to be made public on Dec. 31, 2019, according to an agreement the former vice president entered into with the University of Delaware in 2011 upon donating his papers to the institution.
Those parameters, however, were changed on April 24—the day before Biden declared his 2020 campaign—when the university announced the trove of documents would now be made public on Dec. 31 or “two years” after the former vice president “retires from public life.” At the time, the university provided no definition for what it considered “public life,” leaving open the final date for release.
Included among the documents are “committee reports, drafts of legislation,” and personal correspondance between Biden and his colleagues. Some of the records are likely to be controversial, especially those detailing the former vice president’s early work alongside southern segregationists to oppose busing to integrate public schools. – READ MORE