PanaTimes

Thursday, Sep 28, 2023

Special counsel to probe Biden's handling of government documents

Special counsel to probe Biden's handling of government documents

President Joe Biden's own administration named a special counsel to probe the improper storage of classified documents at his home and a former office on Thursday, an embarrassing echo of a wider-ranging inquiry directed at his main political rival, Donald Trump.

The inquiry is a distraction for a Democratic president who has criticized his Republican predecessor's handling of classified material, and could cast a shadow over Biden as the two gear up for a possible 2024 election rematch.

Garland said Robert Hur, who served as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland under Trump, will act as a quasi-independent prosecutor to determine whether classified records from Biden's time as vice president had been improperly stored at his residence in Delaware and a think tank in Washington. Garland said Hur will examine "whether any person or entity violated the law."

The White House pledged to cooperate.

"We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced," White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement.

While Biden and Trump now face inquiries from special prosecutors, who are typically appointed to politically sensitive cases to ensure a degree of independence from Justice Department leadership, that does not mean their cases are the same.

Biden's attorneys said they have found fewer than a dozen classified documents and turned over the relevant papers after finding them. Trump resisted doing so until an August FBI search turned up about 100 classified documents, raising questions about whether Trump or his staff obstructed the investigation.

"The facts cannot be more different. The only similarity is there were classified documents that were taken out of the White House to somewhere else, said Kel McClanahan, head of National Security Counselors, a law firm.

The special counsel investigating Trump's handling of documents is also leading inquiries into the Republican's attempts to overturn his November 2020 election defeat to Biden.


PROTECTIONS


As a sitting president, Biden faces less legal risk than Trump. He has broad latitude to declassify documents and will likely be shielded from prosecution, as the Justice Department has a long-standing policy of not bringing criminal charges against the occupant of the Oval Office.

Trump, by contrast, lost those protections when he left office.

Garland said he decided a special counsel was necessary in the Biden case after an initial investigation conducted by John Lausch, a Trump appointee who serves as the top federal prosecutor in the Chicago region.

"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law," Garland said at a news conference.

Hur, in a statement, said he would conduct the investigation impartially.


REPUBLICAN CRITICISM


Republicans said they would be in a better position than the Justice Department to handle the investigation.

"When special counsels are appointed, it limits our ability to do some of the oversight investigations that we want to do," said Representative James Comer, who will head the House Oversight Committee.

Garland named a special counsel, Jack Smith, in November to oversee investigations of Trump, shortly after Trump said he would seek the Republican nomination to run again for president in 2024.

About 100 documents marked as classified were among thousands of records seized during an August search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Biden called Trump's behavior "totally irresponsible" in September.

Biden, 80, is expected to formally begin a re-election campaign in the coming weeks.

"People know I take classified documents, classified material seriously," Biden told reporters on Thursday.

The White House said Biden does not know what is in the documents.

Sauber, the White House lawyer, said Biden's personal attorneys found fewer than a dozen classified records in a locked closet in November when they were packing files at an office Biden formerly used at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a University of Pennsylvania think tank.

White House officials say those lawyers gave the material to the U.S. National Archives, the agency responsible for the preservation of government records.

The White House revealed the discovery to the public on Monday. Hours before Garland's announcement, a White House lawyer said a second set of classified papers from that time was found at a storage space at his Delaware home.

Garland revealed on Thursday that the Delaware documents were found on Dec. 20, meaning that the White House knew about them and did not mention them when it made its initial Jan. 9 disclosure.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean Pierre told reporters that the Justice Department's review prevented the administration from telling the public.

Trump during his presidency faced a special counsel, Robert Mueller, who found insufficient evidence to conclude that contacts between Trump's campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential race amounted to criminal conduct. Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice but then-Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, subsequently cleared him.

Democratic President Bill Clinton was likewise dogged by an independent prosecutor, Ken Starr, who uncovered evidence of an extramarital affair with a White House intern, which led to Clinton's impeachment.

Newsletter

Related Articles

PanaTimes
Close
0:00
0:00
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
Swedish Embassy in Baghdad Engulfed in Flames Amidst a Firestorm of Protests
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
An Ominous Shift in Warfare: Western Powers Risk War Crimes and Violate International Norms with Cluster Bomb Supply to Ukraine
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×