(Axios) President Biden‘s team is concerned that special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents will hurt his re-election campaign.
Why it matters: Biden aides don’t expect criminal charges in the case, but they believe Hur’s report will include embarrassing details — possibly with photos — on how Biden stored documents.
- In late 2022, Obama-era classified documents were discovered in Biden’s garage at his home in Delaware and in a private office he used.
- Biden aides believe that Donald Trump, Biden’s likely foe in November, will try to use Hur’s report to create equivalency with the felony chargesTrump faces related to his keeping classified documents after his presidency.
- Biden aides believe Hur’s probe is done and that his final report could come any time — even as soon as this week — but the final timing is unclear.
Zoom in: Hur, a former U.S. attorney nominated by Trump in 2017 and a former clerk for conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is required to write a report about the investigation.
- Last fall, Garland said on “60 Minutes” that he would make public a special counsel’s report on Hunter Biden, the president’s son, “to the extent permissible under the law” to “explain [the] … decisions to prosecute or not prosecute, and their strategic decisions along the way.”
- He added: “Usually, the special counsels have testified at the end of their reports, and I expect that that will be the case here.”
- A Justice Department spokesperson told Axios that Garland is committed to releasing as much as possible of all special counsel reports, pointing to previous comments by Garland.
Even if there are no criminal charges, Biden aides expect the report’s details to be politically damaging.
- Biden has defended storing documents from his vice presidency in his garage, saying: “By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”
- Any photos of those storage practices could cause a political storm similar to what happened after the release of photos of Trump storing documents at Mar-a-Lago, including in a bathroom.
- Trump, who resisted the U.S. government’s efforts to retrieve the documents, faces 40 criminal counts in the case including obstruction of justice and willful retention of national defense information.
Zoom out: Garland’s appointment of Hur added to the tension between Biden’s team and Garland that’s been fueled by Garland’s appointment of the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, feelings that Garland was too slow to investigate Trump over Jan. 6, and other frustrations.
