University of Delaware can keep Biden Senate papers hidden: court ruling

The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling on Thursday denying a conservative watchdog group and media outlet access to a trove of documents from President Biden’s time in the Senate. 

In April 2020, Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for the papers, which were gifted to the University of Delaware by Biden in 2012. 

The university denied the requests, arguing that the documents were not considered public records because they don’t involve the expenditure of state funds by the school.

The U of D’s refusal to allow the watchdog group and media outlet access to Biden’s Senate archive was upheld by the office of Delaware’s Democratic attorney general and by a Superior Court judge.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told The Post on Thursday that Biden’s “home field advantage up in Delaware” likely played a role in the state Supreme Court’s decision.

“But the American people lost because there’s intense interest from his days as a senator, especially given the developments that he took classified information with him,” Fitton explained. 

“The second question is, who’s funding this operation? They’re expecting us to believe there’s no taxpayer money, well then, who’s funding it? And Congress has got to get on the ball and figure this out,” he said. 

Fitton also told The Post that ex-Senate staffer Tara Reade, who accused Biden of sexual assault in 2020 and then fled to Russia, has indicated that the archive may hold evidence supporting her allegations.

“She suggested there could be records in the housed materials that could bolster her claims,” Fitton said.

The Biden archive, housed at the Newark, Del., library of the 80-year-old president’s alma mater, contains a vast collection of papers and digital records from Biden’s 36 years serving in the Senate.

The 1,875 boxes of documents were delivered to the university on two trucks loaded with 33 pallets, according to news reports from the time. Also part of the gift to the university was 415 gigabytes of electronic records formerly belonging to Biden. 

The Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch additionally sought communications between university staff and Biden’s staff and log sheets of individuals who have visited the collection. 

Biden made the gift to the university on the condition that they would not be publicly released until two years after he retires from public life. 

The Post reported in February that emails from first son Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop show that one of his business partners in an alleged influence-peddling operation, former Rosemont Seneca President Eric Schwerin, helped coordinate the transfer of Joe Biden’s Senate papers to the University of Delaware

Communications between White House officials, Schwerin, and Hunter Biden revealed the haul may have included “sensitive” and “classified” documents.