According to a report by CNN , two sources confirmed that special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed to investigate President Joe Bide...
According to a report by CNN, two sources confirmed that special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed to investigate President Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents at two locations, is not going to charge anyone.
Hur and his team will be releasing a detailed report on their year-long probe that is expected to be critical of Biden and his staff for the way they handled sensitive materials. The report is to detail what the special counsel's office found in its investigation, but it would be unlikely for Biden to face criminal charges related to the discovery of said documents at his home and office, the sources close to Hur added. The team told other Department of Justice (DoJ) officials that they hope to have the report completed by the end of the year, but that timeline could slide.
Last November, lawyers for the U.S. president discovered a small number of classified documents dating from his term as vice president at an office the president formerly used and reported it to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Justice Department opened an inquiry into why and how they got there. CNN reported at the time that around 10 classified documents, some marked "top secret," were found and related to the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Iran. Biden's legal team prepared to search his other properties for any similar documents and discussed with the DoJ the prospect of having FBI agents present while Biden's lawyers conducted the additional searches.
In January, Attorney General Merrick Garland handpicked Hur to investigate the matter, amid questions about why the White House delayed public announcements of the discovery of the sensitive records at that time. Critics could not help but wonder why the DoJ is working so hard to imprison 2024 presidential poll leader former President Donald Trump over mishandling classified documents when Hur will let Biden off just like that over the same charges.
In the week since news reports first surfaced about the documents, the incident has drawn parallels to the discovery of documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which federal agents obtained a warrant to search in August after more than a year of negotiations between Trump's lawyers, the NARA and DoJ, and after the former president's lawyers said all documents had been returned.
"There were plenty of questions and questionable activity, including the comings and goings of several White House officials in the months leading up to the discovery of classified documents, surrounding Biden's concealment of the papers from his time as vice president. Yet neither the article nor the accompanying TV segment made any mention of why Biden's lawyers, who claimed they stumbled across the documents, were snooping around the Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C., in the first place," an article on the Federalist pointed out.
The independent news outlet pointed out that CNN did not mention the other key differences between the two cases, like the fact that Trump's documents were discovered on a private, Secret Service-protected property while Biden's were found in a busy public building and easily accessible garage. Nor did it note that NARA specifically didn't work with Trump after his departure as it did with former President Barack Obama and Biden. Moreover, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters then that he was unaware that government documents had been stored there.
It can be noted that Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in June with 37 counts of mishandling classified documents and two months later, he tacked on three more charges related to the discovery of documents at Trump's mansion. For critics, Biden's information cache warranted the same level of investigation and transparency that Trump suffered. The current POTUS harbored classified documents from his time as vice president in a box by his 1967 Corvette Stingray and his "think tank" office for years, yet it was Trump who could soon be imprisoned.
Comer subpoenas Biden aides about classified documents
Last week, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky), who is leading a three-committee impeachment probe against Biden that has largely focused on the first family's foreign business machinations, subpoenaed ex-White House counsel Dana Remus for information about the matter. Last month, Comer indicated that his Oversight Committee is looking at the document situation and pointed to alleged gaps in the White House's timeline of events.
"The Committees are also investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House," Comer and Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a legally binding demand for testimony letter addressed to Director of Oval Office operations Annie Tomasini, Jill Biden adviser Anthony Bernal, Chief of Staff Aide Katharine Reilly and Special Assistant Ashley Williams.
No comments