Biden's Delaware home is now a player in document drama

It's President Joe Biden's refuge from Washington — a place that's part home office, part Sunday family dinner venue, a safe place for his treasured 1967 Corvette and a makeshift campaign studio during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, is coming under fresh scrutiny as a repository of classified material.

The White House confirmed Thursday that classified records were found in the garage of Biden's Wilmington home, as well as an adjacent room that the president later identified as his personal library. The disclosure came three days after the White House said similarly classified materials were located at Biden's former institute in Washington. The discoveries, taken together, prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to tap a special counsel to oversee the matter.

The announcement shines a brighter spotlight on Biden's Wilmington house, where he regularly spends the weekends and where he finds more freedom and a homier atmosphere than at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"I said when I was running, I wanted to be president — not to live in the White House, but to be able to make the decisions about the future of the country," Biden said in February 2021, just after he took office. Living in the White House, he said, is "a little like a gilded cage in terms of being able to walk outside and do things."

So far in his presidency, Biden has spent part or all of 194 days in his home state of Delaware, spending most weekends in either at his Wilmington home or in Rehoboth Beach, where he owns a $2.7 million home, according to an Associated Press tally. He will head to Wilmington again this weekend.

Despite an onslaught of criticism, particularly from Republicans, for regularly escaping to the state, White...