Special Counsel Named to Probe Classified Documents Found at Biden Office, Home

By GNNLiberia On Jan 12, 2023 98

Ken Bredemeier

VOA FILE – President Joe Biden looks at a document as he speaks at an event in Hagerstown, Md., Oct. 7, 2022. Documents with “classified” markings from when Biden was vice president have been found at two nongovernment locations, the White House has said. (Photo AP)

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday named a special counsel to investigate how classified government documents ended up being stored at a former Washington office of President Joe Biden and at his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

Garland, the top U.S. law enforcement official, selected career prosecutor Robert Hur, a former lead federal prosecutor in the eastern state of Maryland, to conduct the probe. Hur also served as a high-ranking Department of Justice official during the administration of Biden’s immediate predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.

Garland’s decision followed his earlier appointment of special counsel Jack Smith to conduct a similar investigation of Trump. For months, the former president balked at turning over sensitive classified documents to the National Archives and Records Administration as required by U.S. law when he left office two years ago and had them shipped to Mar-a-Lago, his oceanside retreat in Florida, where he lives.

Garland told reporters at the Justice Department that Hur’s appointment “underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability for particularly sensitive matters.”

Some Republicans had called for Garland to name a special counsel to investigate the Democratic president.