Garland appoints special counsel to take over Biden classified documents investigation
CNN
By Kevin Liptak, Evan Perez, Phil Mattingly and Marshall Cohen, CNN
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to take over the investigation into the Obama-era classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and former private office.
The special counsel is Robert Hur, who was nominated to be US attorney in Maryland by then-President Donald Trump in 2017 and he served in the role until his resignation in 2021. He had most recently been working in private practice in Washington, DC.
“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 underscores for the public the department’s commitment to independence and accountability, and particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”
He said that Hur will receive “all the resources he needs to conduct his work.”
“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment. I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said in a statement.
The appointment is a major 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 in November appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
The special counsel 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’s aides located documents with classified markings at 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 reads. Biden frequently spends weekends at the home, located in a wealthy, wooded enclave on a lake.
Speaking Thursday, Biden said the documents were in a “locked garage” and that he was cooperating fully with the Department of Justice.
“It’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” he insisted when a reported asked why he was storing classified material next to a sports car.
The president said he was going “to get a chance to speak on all of this, God willing, soon.”
The special counsel announcement significantly escalates the existing inquiry, which started as a preliminary review handled by the US attorney in Chicago. This also increases the potential legal exposure for Biden, his aides and lawyers who handled sensitive government materials from his time as vice president. By bringing on a special counsel, Garland is insulating himself from the politically sensitive case, though he’ll still get the final say on whether to bring any charges. When that decision comes, no matter the outcome, it will surely become a major flashpoint 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 presidential election for the third straight cycle. 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, special counsel to Biden, said in a statement: “We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake.”
White House confirms new classified documents found
During his news conference, Garland laid out a timeline of events in the case.
The National Archives informed a DOJ prosecutor on November 4 that the White House had made the Archives aware of documents with classified markings that had been found at Biden’s think tank, which was not authorized to store classified materials, Garland said Thursday.
The Archives told the prosecutor that the documents has been secured in an Archives facility. The FBI opened an initial assessment five days later, and on November 14, US Attorney John Lausch was tasked with leading that preliminary inquiry. The next month, on December 20, White House counsel informed Lausch of the second batch of apparently classified documents found at Biden’s Wilmington home, according to Garland’s account. On Thursday morning, a personal attorney 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 following a search of the president’s homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. No classified documents were located in the Rehoboth property, the statement said. The documents were found “among personal and political papers.”
Lawyers for Biden concluded their review of the Delaware homes on Wednesday evening.
“As was done in the case of the Penn-Biden Center, the Department of Justice was immediately notified, and the lawyers arranged for the Department of Justice to take possession of these documents,” the statement reads.
A person familiar with the situation said after the statement was released that in the case of the classified documents initially discovered at the Penn-Biden Center, Biden lawyers first notified the National Archives — not the Justice Department — which then in turn notified the Justice Department.
Biden’s lawyers followed “proper protocol” by first notifying the Archives with the first batch of classified documents, the person said, but because the Justice Department subsequently got involved and the president’s lawyers were then in touch with them, in the second instance, the lawyers informed the Justice Department.
But key questions remain unanswered about the stash of classified material, including who brought them to Biden’s private homes and what specifically was contained in them.
DOJ interviews people associated with Biden
Several people associated with Biden have been interviewed as part of the Justice Department 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 packing and closing out his records and personal items and extends to some individuals who may have had knowledge how the documents discovered on November 2 ended up inside Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Engagement, the people said.
The names of those interviewed remain unclear. It is possible more interviews may be conducted going forward, one of the people said, though it remains a fluid process.
A quickly escalating crisis
The Biden issue burst into public view 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 occurred in November, days before the midterm elections, but Biden’s team kept the matter under wraps and didn’t publicly acknowledge anything until it came out in the 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 at his former think tank office in Washington in early November.
The discovery set off alarm bells inside the White House, where only a small circle of advisers and lawyers were aware of the matter. An effort was launched to search other locations where documents from Biden’s time as vice president may have been stored.
CNN previously reported that the initial batch discovered when Biden’s personal attorneys were packing files at his former private office contained 10 classified documents, including US intelligence materials and briefing memos about Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.
Some of the classified documents were “top secret,” the highest level. They were found in three or four boxes that also contained unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act, CNN has 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.
Prior to new reports about the second batch of government materials on Wednesday, the White House refused to answer a number of critical questions about the classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president discovered inside a private office last fall, citing an ongoing Department of Justice review.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday refused to answer a number questions about the documents, citing the Justice Department’s ongoing review of the matter. She could not say who brought the documents into the office or whether other documents were found. Nor could she say whether an audit was underway to locate other possible documents or when the president had been briefed on the discovery of the documents.
“This is under review by the Department of Justice. I’m not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday,” Jean-Pierre said, repeating the explanation in so many words over the course of Wednesday’s press briefing. “I’m not going to go beyond what my colleagues at the White House counsel shared with all of you as well.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
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CNN’s Tierney Sneed, MJ Lee, Maegan Vazquez, Phil Mattingly and Evan Perez contributed to this report.
