OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The U.S. Justice Department will not pursue charges against President Joe Biden regarding handling classified documents discovered in his residence and office. However, according to a knowledgeable source on Tuesday, an investigative report will scrutinize his actions and offer criticism.
According to a confidential source, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation, which Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to oversee the examination of Biden documents, is now complete. According to the individual, the investigation report’s findings may be disclosed this week.
The development alleviates a significant legal and political burden that has been looming over Biden’s reelection campaign, Time reported.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is currently confronting serious criminal charges concerning his possession of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Hur was assigned the task of examining the details surrounding the finding of documents containing classified markings at Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, as well as at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, which Biden utilized as his office following his vice presidency.
This decision is likely to intensify Trump’s assertion that the Justice Department is biased against him. He is currently facing charges in four distinct criminal prosecutions, which encompass two federal cases, such as the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
White House officials contend that the Biden situation is distinct because the president’s staff willingly handed over classified documents upon their discovery and consented to the search of his Delaware residence.
Garland granted Hur the authority to investigate the potential unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records.
The Justice Department has previously concluded an investigation into whether Vice President Mike Pence mishandled classified documents, ultimately finding no basis for pressing charges. In June, the department issued a letter to Pence’s lawyer stating that he had been exonerated in the review.
In November 2022, Attorney General Garland appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate classified materials discovered at Trump’s residence in Florida.
Trump has been charged by prosecutors with obstructing the government’s endeavors to recover classified material that was unlawfully taken from the White House following the conclusion of his term in early 2021.
Biden’s re-election campaign is preparing for a wave of negative fallout stemming from the expected release of photos showing careless storage of classified documents.
Biden’s advisors are apprehensive about potentially embarrassing photographs that may be included in Hur’s forthcoming report, which is expected to be released as early as this week.
The images might reveal how Biden stored classified materials, which were found in late 2022, both in the garage of Biden’s Delaware residence and in a private office he frequented. The classified documents date back to Biden’s tenure as vice president during the Obama administration.
Anthony Coley, a former senior adviser to Garland, hit the Biden team for slow-walking discovery in the case.
“Against the backdrop of former President Trump’s indictment on charges of willful and deliberate retention of classified documents, the Biden team’s drip, drip, drip of information made the discoveries seem even worse,” he wrote in an op-ed.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who is presiding over his classified documents case in Florida, handed his legal team a victory of sorts after Smith moved to force Trump into sharing files about his defense strategy for the case, particularly on if he wants to blame his attorneys as part of his defense, which many experts said would violate attorney-client privilege.
Katie Phang, a legal analyst for MSNBC, said that in nixing the request, Cannon dealt a significant blow to Smith.
“Judge Cannon enters an ORDER denying, without prejudice, Special Counsel’s Motion to Compel Disclosure Regarding Advice-of-Counsel Defense,” the expert said. “Cannon says that it’s too early in the litigation to consider forcing Donald Trump to have to disclose this information.”
Cannon’s order read, “Assuming the facts and circumstances, in this case, warrant an order compelling disclosure of an advice-of-counsel trial defense, the Court determines that such a request is not amenable to proper consideration at this juncture, before at least partial resolution of pre-trial motions, transmission to Defendants of the Special Counsel’s exhibit and witness lists, and other disclosures as may become necessary.”
Former US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Joyce Vance, said on X that Cannon will delay the case until after the election and may never allow it to take place.
“In the Mar-a-Lago case, Judge Cannon has just refused to enforce a routine deadline, and it’s entirely clear she has no intention of letting this case go to trial before the election or possibly ever,” she wrote.
