Special counsel Robert Hur criticized President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents but did not charge Biden with a crime.
mishandled classified documents, including some related to Afghanistan, in the time since he was vice president and senator but that his actions did not amount to criminal conduct. Special counsel Robert Hur detailed the findings in a lengthy report, the culmination of a yearlong investigation into how documents with classified markings ended up at Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center in“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Hur wrote.
The DOJ made the report public Thursday afternoon, after White House attorneys had completed their review of it and requested no redactions, and after the DOJ had provided a hard copy of it to Congress. The report provided a jarring glimpse into the mental state of Biden, who is 81 years old and and running for reelection. Hur said that he did not recommend charges against Biden in part because the president’s memory was “significantly limited.” For instance, Hur found Biden was renting a home in Virginia in February 2017, shortly after he left the vice presidency, when he told the ghostwriter of his memoir that he had “just found all that classified stuff downstairs” in a recorded conversation. “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” Hur wrote. After the White House completed its review of the report Thursday morning and requested no redactions, the DOJ transmitted its findings to Congress. Biden’s retention of the documents came to light through a media report on Jan. 9, 2023, and Biden responded at the time through his counsel that his team had discovered the documents in early November 2022, days before the midterm elections. The building that housed office space of President Joe Biden’s former institute, the Penn Biden Center, is seen at the corner of Constitution and Louisiana Avenue NW, in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. | The revelation that Biden kept the findings from the public for more than two months prompted concerns about the president’s lack of transparency. Republicans, in particular, raised questions about whether the DOJ would investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents as intensely as it did former President Knowingly removing classified material from a secure location or willfully holding on to classified material is a federal crime. Hur was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland a few days after the public learned of the documents to investigate whether Biden or his aides had committed such crimes. Biden publicly maintained that he was “surprised” to learn of the documents, and Hur said he found no evidence of intent behind the president’s retention of them. However, the report was expected to be deeply critical of Biden’s storage of the documents, some of which were kept in boxes in the garage of his Wilmington home. Much of the investigative activity surrounding Biden’s documents occurred under the public’s radar, even as Trump was being scrutinized publicly over a similar topic. The former president was indicted last June in a separate special counsel inquiry over alleged mishandling of classified material. And while Biden White House counsel Richard Sauber initially responded on Jan. 9, 2023, that the president’s personal attorneys discovered a “small number” of documents at the Penn Biden Center, that story quickly evolved, and lawyers subsequently discovered more documents in additional locations. Media reports several weeks later revealed that the FBI, in coordination with the president, had conducted a search of the Penn Biden Center in mid-November 2022, unbeknownst to the public. When Garland announced Hur’s appointment, he also revealed that Biden’s personal attorneys notified the DOJ that they had discovered another batch of documents with classified markings at Biden’s Wilmington residence on Dec. 20, 2022, prompting the FBI to go retrieve them. While the DOJ ultimately concluded that Biden’s mishandling of classified documents did not amount to criminal behavior, Biden aides have beenBiden is running for reelection, and his campaign has been fearful about the long-awaited details in the special counsel report, which Biden aides expect Trump to highlight as an example of an unfair justice system. Trump is facing felony charges in Florida for alleged willful retention of national defense information and obstruction of justice, and his trial is expected to begin while he is in the thick of his campaign later this year.
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