Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints special counsel to handle Biden documents

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday January 12, 2023 · 10:02 AM PST

2023/01/12 · 10:02

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 11: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland arrives to deliver a statement at the U.S. Department of Justice August 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. Garland addressed the FBI's recent search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, announcing the Justice Department has filed a motion to unseal the search warrant as well as a property receipt for what was taken. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Over the past week, attorneys for President Joe Biden have voluntarily reported the discovery of potentially classified documents at the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s home in Delaware. On Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Merrick Garland is holding a press conference, at which he is expected to discuss those documents and the next steps to be taken by the Department of Justice.

A dozen documents at the Penn Biden Center were found by attorneys working for President Biden in November and reported to the DOJ. Following that discovery, Biden’s attorneys conducted a search of his residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. These are all the locations known to have received documents during and following Biden’s tenure as vice president. This second search netted a “small number of documents,” of which all but one page were found in a garage storage area.

Republicans have been quick to draw false comparisons with the situation at Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump not only took hundreds of documents—including some with the highest top secret classification—but refused to return documents when requested by the National Archives. An FBI search of Trump’s residence occurred only after the DOJ was notified that more classified material remained after Trump had claimed to have returned all documents. A special counsel is currently evaluating whether Trump should face charges for withholding these documents—along with other issues. Multiple Republicans have insisted that a special counsel be appointed to evaluate the documents found by Biden’s attorneys.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 11:12:31 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Correct. When Joe Biden steps forward and says "I took them on purpose, those documents belong to me, and I'm not giving them back, and also I just magically declassified them in my mind," then we can both-sides it, but until then, this is just a (serious) screw-up. https://t.co/nGvQiJXjzv
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 11, 2023

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 7:09:18 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

NEW: WH Counsel’s office says in statement—

“We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake.”
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 12, 2023

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:34:57 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Hur is currently an attorney at the D.C. office of white shoes law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. If you’ve heard of that firm before, it may be because it was the former home of a Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge who repeatedly protected Trump and whose rules were ultimately quashed by the appeals court.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:32:07 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

If you had any doubt about this — Robert Hur was appointed as a U.S. attorney by Donald Trump. He’s a former clerk for Rehnquist.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:28:18 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

And … that’s it. Nothing on the level of classification of the documents, nothing on the content. Most importantly, no effort to differentiate between the Biden team’s volunteering everything and cooperating at every step, with Trump’s team taking the department to court, blocking every effort, and intentionally hiding documents on multiple occasions.

Republicans get their wish for a special counsel. Which they will now greet by 1) pretending that what Biden did was somehow worse than Trump and 2) insisting that a special counsel isn’t going far enough.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:25:16 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Garland has so far provided no additional information on the documents. He’s just emphasizing the need for the DOJ to be seen as independent.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:23:08 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Garland is appointing a special counsel. Former United States Attorney Robert K. Hur has been tapped for the role.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:19:37 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

YouTube Video

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:19:12 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Garland makes it clear that the FBI was called immediately after Biden’s team made the Archives and DOJ aware of the documents to determine whether classified information had been placed at risk. Unknown to all of us, Garland immediately assigned someone to determine if a special counsel was requried.

UPDATE: Thursday, Jan 12, 2023 · 6:09:31 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Technically, the DOJ has announced that Garland will “make a statement,” so it’s unclear whether there will be any questions from the press.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints special counsel to handle Biden documents

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