Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced the next steps to handling President Joe Biden’s classified documents from his term served as vice president under the Obama administration.
The news came hours after Biden’s legal aides discovered another small set of classified documents in a different location than the ones found at his former Washington, D.C. office in November last year, as Sarah Gambles reported for the Deseret News.
Garland had entrusted Chicago U.S. attorney John Lausch, Jr. with the responsibility to look into the first set of documents.
Who is Robert Hur?
This time around, Garland appointed Robert Hur, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland, to investigate the new findings, as The New York Times reported.
The Trump-appointed official began serving his term in 2017 and resigned three years later. Per the Times, Hur is currently a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment,” Hur said in a statement, per CNBC.
“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,” Hur said.
Trump, Biden and the inquiry into classified documents
As Axios noted, there are a few key differences in the inquiry former President Donald Trump faces for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence. First is the volume of documents, with Biden’s described as “a small number” by the White House, compared to nearly 300 documents seized from Trump.
The method of discovery and the reactions of Biden and Trump also distinguish the two investigations, Axios reported.
The Presidential Records Act orders all White House records to be stored in the National Archives once an administration has finished its term.