Special Counsel Finds Biden Willfully Retained Classified Documents, But Case Concludes Without Charges Against President

Special Counsel Robert Hur‘s investigation into President Joe Biden‘s handling of classified documents culminated Thursday without the filing of criminal charges, despite findings of willful retention and disclosure of sensitive military and national security information.

The report puts a spotlight on Biden’s conduct post-vice presidency, highlighting the retrieval by the FBI of classified materials from various unsecured and unauthorized locations across his properties.

Classified documents were discovered in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home, including the garage, offices and basement den, according to CNN.

Biden’s handling of “classified notebooks” in unsecured spaces in his Virginia and Delaware residences raised questions about the safeguarding of national security and foreign policy information.

Hur’s findings indicate the president retained and disclosed classified documents concerning critical military operations and foreign policy in Afghanistan, alongside personal notebooks filled with national security insights.

The report said Biden’s memory was “significantly limited” during interviews conducted in 2023.

The comment and several others in the report were slammed by White House counsel Richard Sauber and Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer Monday in a five-page letter to Hur, CNN reported.

"We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate," Sauber and Bauer reportedly said.

"The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events." 

Despite the gravity of thee findings, Hur, appointed as U.S. attorney in Maryland by then-President Donald Trump in 2017, concluded that criminal charges against Biden were not warranted.

"We concluded that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter," Hur stated. "We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president."

White House counsel Sauber said in a statement that he disagrees with “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments in the Special Counsel’s report,” according to CNN.

“Nonetheless the most important decision the Special Counsel made — that no charges are warranted — is firmly based on the facts and evidence."

Trump, Biden’s likely Republican opponent in the 2024 presidential election, was indicted in June 2023 on federal criminal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents stored at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

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