The investigation into the handling of classified documents facing the American president, Joe Bidenhas concluded and the special prosecutor in charge of the case will soon publish his findings, the attorney general of USA, Merrick Garlandin a letter sent to members of Congress.
In said letter, to which EFE has had access, Garland did not provide details about the conclusions reached by the prosecutor. Robert Hurwho has been investigating Biden for classified documents found in 2022 at his residence in Wilmington (Delaware) and in his private office in the Penn Biden Centerin Washington DC
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After those documents were found, Garland named Hur, close to the Republican Partyto serve as special prosecutor.
The figure of the special prosecutor is used in USA for cases in which the country’s attorney general may have a conflict of interest with the topic investigated, as in this case, given that Garland was appointed to his position by Biden himself and the president is up for re-election in the 2024 elections .
The special prosecutors act independently of the Justice Department and, upon completing their investigations, they prepare a report that is usually sent first to Congress and later made public.
Hur’s report could include recommendations on whether criminal charges should be brought against Biden. However, according to The Washington Post on Tuesday, prosecutors do not plan to charge anyone.
Investigations of presidents and their advisers are always complicated because the policy of the Department of Justice is that a sitting head of state cannot be charged with a crime. However, Biden’s advisors could be charged if evidence is found for this.
At the center of the investigation are documents from the time when Biden was vice president with Barack Obama (2009-2017) and that the current president’s lawyers found in November 2022 when they were cleaning his private office at the Penn Biden Center, a study center linked to the University of Pennsylvania.
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In that case, they were immediately returned to the National Archivesin charge of preserving this type of official documents, and an investigation was initiated in the Department of Justice to determine if any law had been violated.
Later in December 2022, Biden’s lawyers searched his home in Wilmington and they found in the garage a “small number” of documents with markings indicating that they were classified material, the White House later reported.
In January, attorneys found other documents in the Wilmington home, in a room adjacent to the garage.
Biden’s home on the beach Rehoboth (Delaware) was also searched last year, but no classified material was found, according to the White House.
Trump is also being investigated and has been charged with 40 criminal charges in Florida for mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice, since for months he kept these materials in boxes in his mansion in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) and refused to return them to the National Archives.
According to information that has been made public, both investigations are very different: the number of documents at issue in the Biden investigation is around 20, while Trump allegedly illegally withheld 300 documents.
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Furthermore, while Biden has collaborated with investigators, Trump repeatedly refused to return the documents and the FBI had to break into his mansion in Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 to get hold of the boxes of classified documents that were still in his custody.
There is no specific date for the publication of the final report on the Biden investigation.
However, this issue will surely shake up the campaign for the November elections, in which Biden could once again face Trump, the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.
