Biden special counsel has completed classified documents probe, Garland reveals
The special counsel appointed to investigate President Biden’s handling and improper storage of classified documents dating back to his days as a US senator has finished his investigation after nearly 13 months, Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers Wednesday night.
In his letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Garland wrote that Robert Hur, a former Maryland US attorney, had submitted his report on Monday and the document would be released following a so-called “privilege review” by the White House counsel’s office.
“I am committed to making as much of the Special Counsel’s report public as possible,” Garland wrote, “consistent with legal requirements and [Justice] Department policy.”
Hur’s report is not expected to recommend charges against Biden, 81, or anyone in his orbit — but members of the president’s re-election campaign reportedly fear the special counsel could reveal embarrassing details and photographs concerning the treatment of sensitive national security information.
The special counsel was appointed by Garland on Jan. 12, 2023, after the White House admitted a series of discoveries of classified papers at both Biden’s Wilmington, Del. residence and at his post-vice presidency office in DC provided by the University of Pennsylvania.
Biden’s lawyers said they initially found classified documents on Nov. 2, 2022, while clearing out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill.
That discovery, six days before the midterm elections, was kept quiet until CBS News broke the story Jan. 9 of last year.
Additional documents were found on Dec. 20, 2022, in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington home, followed by a series of additional discoveries by searchers including FBI investigators — who also searched Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home and left with written notes.
Biden was interviewed by Hur’s investigators in October — roughly a year after he chided Trump as “irresponsible” for retaining national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago, the basis of an ongoing federal case against the 45th president.
The president has sought to downplay the controversy, telling PBS in February of last year: “To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things that — from 1974, stray papers.”
Biden first publicly acknowledged the November 2022 discovery of documents at the Penn Biden Center at a Jan. 10, 2023, press conference in Mexico City.
In his initial remarks, Biden didn’t say that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage days earlier.
The same day Hur was appointed by Garland, the president admitted that more records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, but denied he was reckless with the nation’s secrets.
“My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK?” Biden snapped at reporters. “So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”