By Katelynn Richardson
The Delaware Supreme Court sided with the University of Delaware Thursday, denying the release of President Joe Biden’s Senate records in a lawsuit brought by the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch.
The DCNF and Judicial Watch appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court in January 2023 after the state’s Superior Court found the university had satisfied the burden of proof needed to justify denying the records that the DCNF requested through the state’s public records act. The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s judgement Thursday, shielding the documents requested in both organization’s April 30, 2020 public records requests from release.
“The public has a significant interest in these documents,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told the DCNF. “If the Delaware courts are going to protect Biden from having to produce them or the secret deal that keeps them away from the American people, then Congress should get involved.”
Documents requested by the DCNF, which now will not be released, include agreements relating to the storage of 1,850 boxes and 415 gigabytes of records from 1973 to 2009, communications between university staff and Biden’s staff, log sheets of individuals who have visited the collection and the actual records in the collection.
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)
The records may contain information relating to Tara Reade, who accused Biden of sexually assaulting her while working in his senate office in 1993, or the president’s son Hunter Biden, who recently pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while using a controlled substance and for failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018. (RELATED: Meet The US Attorney Who Allegedly Covered For Hunter Biden)
Biden’s records have been housed at the University of Delaware Library since 2012. He gave them to the university on the condition that they would not be publicly released until “they have been properly processed and archived,” according to the university’s website.
During oral arguments for the case in June, legal counsel representing the university told the Delaware Supreme Court it could determine whether public funds were used to support Biden’s papers without looking at the records.
