Law enforcement officials at the federal level have recently carried out interviews of a number of aides who worked alongside then-Vice President Joe Biden throughout the last few weeks of the Obama administration about just how classified materials were being dealt with that somehow ended up hidden inside a Biden think tank and at Biden’s home in Delaware.
The news takes place as U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has officially announced the appointment of U.S. Attorney Robert Hur — who served during the Trump administration — to carry out the investigation as special counsel in the investigation.
“On January 5th, 2023, [U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John] Lausch briefed me on the results of his initial investigation and advised me that further investigation by a special counsel was warranted,” stated Garland. “Based on Mr. Lausch’s initial investigation, I concluded that, under the special counsel regulations, it was in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”
It was reported by NBC News that Kathy Chung, one former aide for Biden, was contacted due to allegedly being one of the ones to assist Biden in the packing up of the vice presidential office as the Obama administration came to its end. As of writing, Chung currently works as deputy director of protocol for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, explained a recently released report.
“The people who were boxing [up the vice presidential office] had no idea that there was anything in there that shouldn’t leave the White House,” explained one source familiar with the investigation to the outlet, NBC News. “There was no decision made to take certain documents that should have been presidential records or classified.
The investigation kicked up just after Biden’s personal attorney discovered a cache of 10 classified documents hidden within an envelope in the president’s personal offices at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The lawyer found the package back on the 2nd of November, though the discovery did not get released to the public until just recently. Additionally, the cache was quickly sent back over to the National Archives for storage, as explained last Monday by the special counsel to the president, Richard Sauber.
Sauber explained in a follow-up statement that a full-scale review of Biden’s known offices, quarters, and other spaces ended up finding even more of these classified documents, but this time they were found in the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, as reported by The New York Times.
The order pushed through by Garland explained that Hur would be officially looking into “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered.”
“The document authorizes him to investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter,” stated Garland at the time of the press conference. “The special counsel will not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the department, but he must comply with the regulations, procedures and policies of the department.”
