Watchdog, news group sues for Joe Biden's Senate records

FPI / July 9, 2020

By Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation against the University of Delaware for Joe Biden’s Senate records.

The university said it will not release the records until two years after Biden has retired from public life.

The records are housed at the university’s library. The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware.

Tara Reade, who has accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when she worked as a staff assistant to the then-senator, has said that she believes a workplace discrimination and harassment complaint she filed against Biden at the time may be in the records housed at the University of Delaware.

Biden also admitted to communicating with Vladimir Putin and other foreign leaders when he was a United State Senator.

“The University of Delaware should stop protecting Joe Biden and provide the public access to his public records, as Delaware law requires,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

The Daily Caller and Judicial Watch filed requests on April 30 for all of Biden’s records and for records about the preservation and any proposed release of the records, including communications with Biden or his representatives.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the University denied its April 30 FOIA request seeking:

• All records regarding the proposed release of the records pertaining to former Vice President Joe Biden's tenure as a Senator that have been housed at the University of Delaware Library since 2012. This request includes all related records of communication between the University of Delaware and any other records created pertaining to any meeting of the Board of Trustees during which the proposed release of the records was discussed.
• All records of communication between any representative of the University of Delaware and former Vice President Biden or any other individual acting on his behalf between January 1, 2018 and the present.

On April 30, the Daily Caller News Foundation submitted its FOIA request to the University seeking:

• All agreements concerning the storage of more than 1,850 boxes of archival records and 415 gigabytes of electronic records from Joe Biden's senate career from 1973 through 2009.
Communications between the staff of the University of Delaware Library and Joe Biden or his senatorial, vice-presidential or political campaign staff, or for anyone representing any of those entities between 2010 [April 30,2020] about Joe Biden’s senate records.
• Any logs or sign-in sheets recording any individuals who have visited the special-collections department where records from Joe Biden's senate career are stored between 2010 to the date of this request.
• All records from Joe Biden's Senate career that have been submitted to the University of Delaware Library.

On May 20, the University denied the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request.

“The University of Delaware should do the right thing and turn over Joe Biden’s public records as required by law,” Daily Caller News Foundation Co-Founder and President Neil Patel said. “Partisan gamesmanship by a public university is unseemly and unlawful. If they don’t want to do the right thing, we will force them in court.”

In response to both Judicial Watch’s and the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests, the University claimed, without corroboration, that public funds are not used to support the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Senatorial Papers.

Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation are being represented by Delaware lawyers Ted Kittila and Bill Green of Halloran Farkas + Kittila LLP.

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