Joe Biden and Donald Trump (images via ANGELA WEISS and MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
When then-President Donald Trump was under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, he famously refused to sit down for an interview in the Russia probe for more than a year before ultimately agreeing only to answer written questions with no follow-up opportunities. Now in 2023, private citizen Trump faces a new special counsel threat and criminal charges for allegedly willfully retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing the feds from recovering those documents — and he’s looking to drag out the case well past the 2024 election.
With his own reelection fate on the horizon, President Joe Biden on Sunday and Monday opted not to stonewall special counsel Robert K. Hur’s probe into how classified documents ended up in two different locations, one of them Biden’s Delaware home.
“The President has been interviewed as part of the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur. The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday,” the White House said in a statement. “As we have said from the beginning, the President and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation. ”
“We would refer other questions to the Justice Department at this time,” the statement ended.
The two-day Biden interview took place just under two weeks after it was reported that national security adviser Jake Sullivan, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, and others were questioned by the special counsel.
How we got here
In January, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland concluded that a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the “possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records” that were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement — a Washington, D.C., think tank — and in a garage at Joe Biden’s home in Delaware.
Then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John R. Lausch Jr., who was appointed by Trump in 2017, had been tasked by Garland with the initial investigation into the classified documents, which were reportedly found by Biden’s lawyers and handed over in November and December 2022.
The documents, reportedly marked classified and dating back to Biden’s vice presidency, were returned to the National Archives and the FBI. Former Vice President Mike Pence similarly cooperated with the feds after a “small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records” turned up at his Indiana home in January.
Garland, citing the “public interest” in January, tapped former U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur as special counsel to probe the whether the law was broken in the Biden case.
“This appointment underscores for the public the Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law,” Garland said. “I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department.”
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A concomitant appointment order authorized Hur to pick up Lausch’s investigation and, if warranted, to “prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.”
Hur also promised to investigate the case “without fear of favor.”
“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment,” Hur said upon being appointed as special counsel in the Biden case. “I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”
What it may mean
Former federal prosecutor and current legal analyst Renato Mariotti, echoing the New York Times’ reporting on the subject, commented that Biden’s decision to sit for the interview signals that a) special counsel Hur’s investigation is nearing its end and b) that the president appears to be acting as if he has nothing to hide.
“This suggests that Special Counsel Hur’s investigation is wrapping up and that Biden’s legal team is not concerned about any potential criminal charges,” Mariotti said. “Unlike Trump, Biden sat for a two-day interview. He wouldn’t have done that if he had potential criminal exposure.”
National security lawyer Bradley Moss noted that Biden, with the decision to sit for a voluntary interview amid the special counsel investigation, had done something former President Trump “never did.”
I can’t describe how different this was handled by Biden compared to Trump.
Trump never sat for an interview. His lawyers couldn’t trust him.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 9, 2023
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