GOP says Garland must appoint special counsel in Biden classified documents scandal
Jerry Dunleavy
Video Embed
Republicans are calling upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to handle the Justice Department’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s possible mishandling of classified information — as Garland did in the Mar-a-Lago saga.
The Biden records were allegedly found by the president’s personal attorneys at the Penn Biden Center in the nation’s capital in November 2022, just days before the midterm elections. A second tranche of files with classified markings was discovered in a storage space in Biden’s Wilmington garage, White House counsel Richard Sauber revealed Thursday.
BIDEN CLASSIFIED DOCS SAGA: PENN CENTER VS. MAR-A-LAGO
Garland has selected U.S. Attorney John Lausch, a Trump-appointed holdover, to handle the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden improperly keeping classified documents. Lausch is one of only two Trump-appointed federal prosecutors kept on by Biden — the other is David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, who is investigating Biden’s son Hunter.
The discovery of classified records in Biden’s possession drew immediate comparisons to the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort home in August 2022.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter to Garland on Wednesday, asking him directly: “Will you appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s alleged retention of classified records, as you did for President Trump?”
“Garland must appoint a special counsel for Biden — or admit his investigation of Trump was just a political hit job,” Hawley tweeted. “Can’t have it both ways.”
Hawley contended: “The double standard here is astounding. The underlying behavior at issue — a president’s retention of old classified documents dating back to a past presidency — is materially the same in both cases. But in President Trump’s case, that retention triggered an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, rationalized with a thicket of partisan doublespeak. President Biden has not experienced anything remotely similar.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, similarly said Wednesday that “if there is not a special counsel appointed to find out how this happened with President Biden regarding classified information … it will hurt the country.”
“I think if you believe a special counsel is necessary to assure the public about the handling of classified documents by Donald Trump, you should apply a special counsel to the mishandling of classified documents by President Biden when he was vice president,” Graham said on Fox News.
After the Justice Department had handled the Mar-a-Lago saga for months before and after the raid, Garland appointed Kosovo war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith to take over the criminal investigation in November 2022.
Smith served under Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, leading the DOJ’s public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015. Smith led a team of 30 prosecutors in conducting public corruption cases throughout the United States, including a mixed track record of going after high-profile politicians. He also inserted the DOJ into what would become the Lois Lerner IRS scandal targeting conservative nonprofit groups during the Obama years.
Republicans say a special counsel must also be appointed in the Biden scandal.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Sauber said Monday that “a small number of documents with classified markings,” along with an unspecified number of “what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records,” had been “discovered” by Biden’s personal attorneys as they packed “files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space.”
Sauber said Biden had “periodically used this space from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign.” Biden declared his candidacy in late April 2019. Sauber said the discovery was made on Nov. 2, 2022, and that the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives the same day.