The Justice Department’s special counsel investigating Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents has released a report concluding that Biden obtained classified information about the U.S. war in Afghanistan and other national security issues. However, he will not be criminally charged.
The documents include a handwritten memo to then-President Barack Obama in 2009 opposing plans to increase troops to Afghanistan, as well as documents related to intelligence briefings and National Security Council meetings, according to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report. It included a handwritten note.
The year-long investigation centered on the improper storage of classified documents from Mr. Biden’s time in the Senate and Mr. Obama’s time as vice president.
The report’s release is likely to have an impact on the competitive 2024 US election, with Republicans poised to pounce on any criticism of the US president. Donald Trump is also under investigation for allegedly improperly storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“It was clear from the beginning that the criminal charges were unwarranted,” Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal attorney, said in a statement.
The confidential records were discovered in 2022 and 2023 at Biden’s Delaware home and in his private office during the Obama administration and before he took office.
The investigation comes as the Justice Department conducts a wide-ranging investigation into classified documents, including allegations that President Trump illegally kept confidential documents even after leaving office and refused to turn them over to federal officials when asked. has been indicted for.
According to Ho’s report, in February 2017, during a conversation at his rented home in Virginia, Biden told a writer working on a memoir, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” ” he is said to have said.
Ho’s report said the conversation created a “best case” for accusations against Biden.
However, Mr. Hsu gave reasons for not indicting Mr. Biden, including the possibility that the documents were taken to his home when he had the authority to preserve them during his time as vice president.
Hoar said even without the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring indictments of sitting presidents, Biden would not have been indicted and the trial must take place, especially after Biden leaves the White House. Given that, he said he believed it was unlikely that a jury would convict him.
“Based on direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone many jurors would want to have reasonable doubt over,” the report said. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict a former president, who was already in his 80s, on serious felonies that required intentional insanity.”
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Mr. Hur, a Republican who served as a top Justice Department official in the Trump administration, was appointed in January 2023 to oversee the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of documents.
Mr. Biden’s nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Mr. Hur to lead the investigation to give the investigation some degree of independence from Justice Department leadership.
Earlier, White House Counsel Ian Sams said the report had been reviewed and no edits were requested.
But Mr. Bauer dismissed Mr. Xu’s report and its investigation, accusing the special counsel of conducting an “overreach” in the length and scope of the investigation and the type of evidence examined.
Bauer continued, “Based on the facts and the law, the special prosecutor in this case had no choice but to determine that criminal charges were not warranted.” He should have followed, but he made the wrong choice.”
Associated Press contributed report
