Special counsel concludes Biden classified docs probe

Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur on Thursday said that his investigation had uncovered evidence that President Joe Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed” classified documents from the Obama administration, in which he was vice president. Hur added that the evidence did not “establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday had written a letter to Congress providing notice that Hur’s investigation had concluded. That letter had not mentioned any forthcoming charges against Biden but had not explicitly said he would not be charged.

What happened with Biden’s classified documents? In November 2022, Biden’s personal attorneys found classified documents from the Obama administration in an office at Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The papers were discovered in an office Biden used after serving as Obama’s vice president. Other papers were later found in his home in Delaware.

What does this mean? Hur concluded in his report that “prosecution of Mr. Biden is… unwarranted.” Hur added that aggravating and mitigating factors in the Department’s Principles of Federal Prosecution led him and his team to “decline prosecution of President Biden.” Congressional Republicans have criticized what they consider to be a lopsided justice system in the United States. Former President Donald Trump faces 40 charges related to the mishandling of classified documents. He denies wrongdoing.

Dig deeper: Read Lynn Vincent’s report in WORLD Magazine about how the Justice Department’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate could be a crossing of the Rubicon in U.S. politics.