Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed former federal prosecutor Robert Hur as special counsel to research the invention of classified government records on the private home and office of President Joe Biden.
Hur is allowed “to research whether any person or entity violated the law in reference to this matter,” Garland said in a public statement he made on the appointment on the Department of Justice.
Hur served because the U.S. Attorney for Maryland from 2018 through 2021, after being nominated for that post by then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Garland’s announcement, which cited “extraordinary circumstances,” got here hours after Biden and his lawyer said that a second batch of classified documents recently had been present in a garage within the Democratic president’s private home in Wilmington, Delaware. That discovery was made on Dec. 20.
A primary batch of classified documents was found on Nov. 2 by lawyers for the president in an office in a Washington think tank that Biden had used while a personal citizen between 2017 and 2021, after serving as vp within the Obama administration.
It isn’t known why lawyers for Biden waited multiple month to go looking for presidency records in other locations related to the president.
The invention of the primary batch of classified records was only publicly reported on Monday by media outlets and later confirmed by the White House.
The White House has not answered why the invention was not disclosed when it occurred, which was one week before the November midterm congressional elections.
The primary discovery also occurred nearly three months after FBI agents raided the Florida residence of Trump, who’s under criminal investigation for retaining hundreds of presidency records, lots of them classified, which were found in the course of the raid.
Presidents and vice presidents are required, by law, to return government records to the National Records and Archives Administration once they leave office.
Garland had assigned John Lausch, the U.S. Attorney for Chicago, to handle the inquiry after the primary batch of records was discovered.
The attorney general said that Lausch, who himself was appointed by Trump, last week beneficial that he name a special counsel within the inquiry.
Hur, in an announcement Thursday, said, Â “I’ll conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment.”
“I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and can honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” Hur said.
A senior Department of Justice official told NBC News that Garland’s appointment of Hur was “not a call he made evenly.”
“The regulations couldn’t be more clear that based on the facts that made the US attorney launch his initial investigation, an appointment of a special counsel is required,” the official said.
Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, on Thursday, said “He was surprised by the invention of those documents. He didn’t know what was in them.”
“The minute that his lawyers found those documents, they reached out to the Department of Justice,” she said. “He didn’t know that those documents were there.”
Jean-Pierre refused to reply whether Biden would comply with an interview with the special counsel or his investigators.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., earlier Thursday said he believed Congress has to research the situation involving the documents.
The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., in an announcement said his panel will investigate the documents.
“The National Archives and Records Administration, the White House, and the Department of Justice were aware of the classified documents stashed in a closet on the Penn Biden Center before the election, and now we have learned classified documents kept in President Biden’s garage were present in December,” Comer said.
“There are numerous questions on why the Biden Administration kept this matter a secret from the general public, who had access to the office and the residence, and what information is contained in these classified documents,” Comer said. “Republicans will push for transparency, accountability, and answers for the American people.”
Biden’s lawyer, Richard Sauber, in an announcement on Hur’s appointment as special counsel, said, “Because the President said, he takes classified information and materials seriously, and as we’ve said, we’ve cooperated from the moment we informed the [National] Archives that a small variety of documents were found, and we’ll proceed to cooperate.”
“We’ve cooperated closely with the Justice Department throughout its review, and we’ll proceed that cooperation with the Special Counsel,” Sauber said.
“We’re confident that an intensive review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this error.”Â
Garland in November appointed one other former federal prosecutor, Jack Smith, as special counsel to oversee two criminal investigations of Trump, considered one of which is concentrated on the federal government records he retained when he left office.
Smith is also investigating Trump for his efforts to reverse the final result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden.
