US Attorney General appoints special counsel to investigate Biden docs

The Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, has on Thursday, appointed a special counsel to investigate the classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware.

Americans were jolted when, on Monday, a cache of classified documents were found at an unsecured office in President Biden’s home dating back to his days as vice president.

FOllowing the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Hur, a onetime U.S. attorney appointed by former President Donald Trump, will lead the investigation.

Hur’s appointment marks the second time in a few months that Garland has appointed a special counsel, an extraordinary fact that reflects the Justice Department’s efforts to independently conduct high-profile probes in an exceedingly heated political environment.

Both of those investigations, the earlier one involving Trump and documents recovered from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, relate to the handling of classified information, though there are notable differences between those cases.

Garland’s decision caps a tumultuous week at the White House, where Biden and his team opened the year hoping to celebrate stronger economic news ahead of launching an expected reelection campaign.

But the administration faced a new challenge Monday, when it acknowledged that sensitive documents were found at the office of Biden’s former institute in Washington.

The situation intensified by Thursday morning, when Biden’s attorney said an additional classified document was found at a room in his Wilmington home — later revealed by Biden to be his personal library — along with other classified documents in his garage.

The attorney general revealed that Biden’s lawyers informed the Justice Department of the latest discovery at the president’s home on Thursday morning, after FBI agents first retrieved documents from the garage in December.

Biden had told reporters at the White House that he was “cooperating fully and completely” with the Justice Department’s investigation into how classified information and government records were stored.

Garland said the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter required Hur’s appointment, adding that the special counsel is authorized to investigate whether any person or entity violated the law.

Federal law requires strict handling procedures for classified information, and official records from Biden’s time as vice president are considered government property under the Presidential Records Act.

Biden ‘surprised’ over discovery

In the meantime, President Biden said he was surprised when informed that government records were found by his attorneys at his former office space in Washington.

He was asked about the issue after the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of potentially classified documents.

Speaking to reporters in Mexico City on Tuesday, Biden said his attorneys “did what they should have done” when they immediately called the National Archives about the discovery at the offices of the Penn Biden Center.

He kept an office there after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his Democratic presidential campaign in 2019.

The White House confirmed that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings” found at the office.

“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said in his first comments since news of the Nov. 2, 2022, document discovery emerged Monday.

He added that “I don’t know what’s in the documents” and that his lawyers had suggested he does not ask.

The Justice Department for months has been investigating the retention of roughly 300 documents that were marked as classified and were recovered from Trump’s Florida estate.

In that instance, prosecutors say, representatives of Trump resisted requests to give back the full stash of classified documents and failed to fully comply with a subpoena that sought their return.

FBI agents in August served a search warrant at the Mar-a-Lago property, removing 33 boxes and containers.

That investigation is being led by special counsel Jack Smith. Prosecutors have interviewed an array of Trump associates and have been using a grand jury to hear evidence. Read more.

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