CNN –
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed a special counsel to take over the investigation into classified Obama-era documents found in President Joe Biden’s home and former private office.
The special counsel is Robert Hur, who was appointed U.S. Attorney in Maryland by then-President Donald Trump in 2017 and served until his resignation in 2021. He had most recently been in private practice in Washington, D.C. .
“I strongly believe that the normal processes of this department can handle all investigations with integrity. But under the regulations, the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said. “This appointment highlights to the public the department’s commitment to independence and accountability, and in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions unquestionably guided only by the facts and the law.”
He said Hur will receive “all the resources he needs to do his job.”
“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment. I intend to pursue the facts promptly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and I will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said in a communicated
The nomination is an important moment for Biden and marks a unique moment in American history with special counsels investigating the current president and his immediate predecessor at the same time. Garland appointed a special counsel in November to oversee criminal investigations into the withholding of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, uprising.
The special counsel’s investigation, along with the aggressive new Republican-led House of Representatives, means Biden may be on the defensive for the next two years.
The appointment comes hours after the White House counsel’s office said in a statement that Biden aides located classified documents in two locations inside his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The documents were located in a storage area in Biden’s garage and an adjacent room, the statement said. Biden often spends weekends at the home, located in a rich wooded enclave on a lake.
Speaking Thursday, Biden said the documents were in a “locked garage” and that he was cooperating fully with the Justice Department.
“It’s not like they’re sitting on the street,” he insisted when a report asked why he kept classified material next to a sports car.
The president said he “will have a chance to talk about all this, God willing, soon.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House had not been notified of Hur’s appointment. However, he could not say exactly when Biden learned that the special counsel had been appointed, given that he was attending a funeral for former Defense Secretary Ash Carter when the news broke.
“Maybe one of his top advisers told him. In fact, I don’t know exactly when he found out, but what I can tell you – it was – we were not notified. I can confirm that,” he told reporters during a information session Thursday afternoon.
The special counsel’s announcement significantly expands the existing investigation, which began as a preliminary review handled by the U.S. attorney in Chicago. It also increases potential legal exposure for Biden, his aides and lawyers who handled sensitive government materials from his time as vice president. With a special counsel, Garland is insulating herself from the politically sensitive case, though she will still have the final say on whether to press charges. When that decision comes, no matter the outcome, it will surely become a major sticking point in the 2024 presidential race.
The development also further puts the Justice Department and FBI where they don’t want to be, right in the middle of a third consecutive presidential election. Since 2015, there have been near-constant FBI probes into presidents and major candidates: Hillary Clinton’s emails; Trump’s ties to Russia; his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified materials; and now Biden’s handling of classified files.
Richard Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, said in a statement: “We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently mistaken, and the president and his lawyers acted quickly to discover this error.”
During his press conference, Garland laid out a timeline of events in the case.
The National Archives informed a DOJ prosecutor on Nov. 4 that the White House had informed the Archives of classified documents found at the Biden think tank, which was not authorized to store classified material, Garland said Thursday.
The Archives told the prosecutor that the documents have been stored in an Archives facility. The FBI opened an initial assessment five days later, and on November 14, US Attorney John Lausch was assigned to lead that preliminary investigation. The following month, on Dec. 20, White House counsel briefed Lausch on the second batch of apparently classified documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, according to Garland’s account. On Thursday morning, a personal lawyer for Biden called Lausch and informed him that an additional document marked as classified had been found at Biden’s home.
The additional documents were located after a search of the president’s homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. No classified documents were located on the Rehoboth property, according to the release. The documents were found “among personal and political papers”. Biden’s lawyers concluded their review of the Delaware homes Wednesday evening.
But key questions remain unanswered about the cache of classified material, including who brought it to Biden’s private homes and what specifically was there.
Garland decided to appoint a special counsel shortly after receiving a recommendation last week from U.S. Attorney John Lausch that he was justified, and before Garland traveled to Mexico with Biden on Sunday night, sources told CNN. Lausch led the preliminary investigation, and Justice Department officials said Garland based his decision on the facts presented to him by investigators.
But a Justice official said public statements from the White House earlier this week, offering an incomplete narrative about classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president, reinforced the need for a special counsel. The misleading statements created the impression that the Biden team had something to hide, the official said.
Several people associated with Biden have been interviewed as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the discovery of classified documents from his time as vice president, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The group includes former aides from Biden’s time as vice president who may have been involved in the packing and sealing of his records and personal belongings, and extends to some people who may have known the documents uncovered on 2 November ended in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Engagement, the people said.
The names of the interviewees are not yet clear. More interviews may be conducted in the future, one of the people said, though it remains a fluid process.
The Biden issue broke publicly in January, when news reports revealed that a Biden lawyer had discovered 10 classified documents while cleaning out one of Biden’s private offices in Washington, DC. The discovery came in November, days before the midterm elections, but Biden’s team kept the matter under wraps and did not publicly acknowledge anything until it went to press.
CNN reported Wednesday that Biden’s legal team had found another batch of classified documents in a search that began after classified documents were found in his former Washington think tank office in early November.
The discovery raised alarms in the White House, where only a small circle of advisers and lawyers were aware of the matter. An effort was made to search other locations where documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been stored.
CNN previously reported that the initial batch discovered when Biden’s personal lawyers were packing files in his former private office contained 10 classified documents, including US intelligence materials and briefing notes on Ukraine, Iran and the UK .
Some of the classified documents were “top secret,” the highest level. They were found in three or four boxes that also contained unclassified documents that are under the Presidential Records Act, CNN reported.
Classified records are supposed to be stored in secure locations. And under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives when an administration ends.
Jean-Pierre has declined to answer several questions about the documents, citing the Justice Department’s ongoing review of the matter. He couldn’t say who brought the…