University of Delaware (UD) President Dennis Assanis said Thursday during a hearing on university funding that the school would comply should the FBI investigate records stored at the institution from President Joe Biden’s Senate career.
The university currently stores 1,850 boxes and 415 gigabytes of electronic data from Biden’s time in the Senate at its library that will not be released until two years after Biden retires from public office. Republican state Senator Dave Lawson questioned university officials during a joint financial meeting, during which the officials were attempting to receive state funding, about whether UD uses public funds to support storing the records and how they would respond to being contacted by the FBI. (RELATED: Judicial Watch, Daily Caller News Foundation Score Victory In Lawsuit Over Biden’s Senate Records)
Lawson’s question was in reference to “confidential material” being found in the possession of top politicians including Biden, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Assanis confirmed the school would comply with any orders from agents.
“If the FBI ever were to want to do anything we would always cooperate with the federal agents,” Assanis said. “We will not use state funds … exactly the same way as we’ve handled so far all the cataloguing and the archiving.”
The university delayed releasing the documents after Biden announced his presidential run in 2020. Some documents could pertain to Tara Reade, who alleged Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993.
Reade told the Daily Caller that a report was filed through the Senate and, if it still exists, would be stored in the records kept at UD.
US President Joe Biden, with with University of Delaware President Dennis Assanis (R) and Senator Tom Carper (L), attends the graduation ceremony for his alma mater, the University of Delaware, at Delaware Stadium, where he will deliver the commencement address, in Newark, Delaware, on May 28, 2022. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Lawson largely questioned whether or not the university used state funding in order to store the records, to which officials repeatedly denied.
Legal watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation in 2020 after the university refused to release the documents, alleging the university used state funds to store the records, thereby making them subject to a public records request. Assanis said that he is not aware of any lawsuit.
He then claimed that the “only people that have access to this collection [are] President Biden and all his designees, and he has not accessed this collection since, I think, 2019 … and nothing has been removed or added to that collection.”
“When they’re done, they’re done,” he said during the meeting.
The lawsuit is the result of a denied public records request for all agreements between the university and Biden, as well as the sign-in records of who has accessed the section of the library where the documents are stored. The request was denied, with university officials claiming that public funds are not used to support the records’ storage.
A state court in August 2022, however, ordered the university to provide clarity on why the records have remained hidden.
The University of Delaware, Judicial Watch and Lawson did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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