Biden Is Packing Up To Leave The White House. But What About Any Classified Documents?

The last time Joe Biden packed up and left office, he took with him thousands of papers from his decades in public service - including some classified documents that should have gone to the National Archives for safekeeping.

That move spawned a federal investigation into whether Biden had knowingly broken the law and a damaging Justice Department report that referred to Biden as an "elderly man with a poor memory," igniting public concerns over his mental acuity that eventually led Biden to drop out of the race .

The discovery also watered down the significance of the criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump, who had been accused of purposefully hoarding top secret documents at his Florida estate - and it helped fuel Trump's claims of unfair political persecution.

The moving trucks are at the White House again, and Biden's staff is loading documents and items for storage as he prepares to depart next week. The administration has promised a new, more secure protocol to review and separate out classified information. But with just a week left to go, there's no word yet on recommendations from a federal task force formed at Biden's behest to develop best practices for transitions.

"We are going to do our best, certainly, to be careful, to follow the rules, to do this the right way, to follow traditions, obviously, as the president truly wants to do," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said of the packing effort.