Robert Hur: Who is Garland-appointed Biden classified docs special counsel?
Jerry Dunleavy
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Attorney General Merrick Garland selected former Trump-appointee U.S. Attorney Robert Hur on Thursday to serve as special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s potential mishandling of classified documents.
Hur, a Department of Justice veteran whose most recent government position was as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland, previously worked for Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein early in the Trump administration and, years prior, for now-FBI Director Christopher Wray at the DOJ.
Biden’s lawyers have admitted that Obama-era records with classified markings on them were found in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center in the nation’s capital in November, with more classified documents found in Biden’s garage in Delaware in December and then additional classified documents found in his Delaware home on Thursday.
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Republicans had called on Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the matter, just as Garland had appointed war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith to take over the investigation of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and Garland quickly delivered.
“I’m here today to announce the appointment of Robert Hur as a special counsel,” Garland said. “The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter.”
Garland continued, “Earlier today, I signed an order appointing Robert Hur as special counsel. The document authorizes him to investigate whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter.”
Garland said Hur “has a long and distinguished career as a federal prosecutor.”
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Hur was appointed by former President Donald Trump to be the U.S. attorney for Maryland in 2017 and was confirmed in 2018. Maryland’s two Democratic senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, welcomed Trump’s selection.
Hur held that position until his resignation in early February 2021, following Biden asking nearly all of the Trump-appointed federal prosecutors to step down.
Garland had selected U.S. Attorney John Lausch, a Trump-appointed holdover, to handle the Justice Department’s investigation into Biden improperly keeping classified documents. Lausch, who flanked Garland during his Thursday announcement, 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.
Before serving as U.S. attorney for Maryland, Hur was appointed principal associate deputy attorney general in June 2017 and worked for Rosenstein as Rosenstein oversaw special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.
Hur held the position into 2018, when his biography says he was a member of DOJ’s senior leadership team and was the principal counselor to Rosenstein, assisting the top DOJ official with overseeing all of the Justice Department, including DOJ’s national security division, the U.S. attorneys’ offices, and the FBI.
Trump nominated Hur to be the top federal prosecutor for Maryland in November 2017, but his nomination was delayed for months as Senate Republicans sought more details about the Mueller investigation being overseen by Rosenstein. Trump nominated dozens of federal prosecutors in 2017, and Hur was the only one still awaiting a confirmation vote by early 2018. Hur was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to the position in March 2018.
Hur also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland from 2007 to 2014, when he worked for Rosenstein for years as Rosenstein held the top prosecutor gig in Maryland before his promotion.
Hur also has a prior relationship with now-FBI Director Wray. Hur spent time from 2003 to 2005 at the Justice Department working as a special assistant and then as counsel to Wray, who was the assistant attorney general in charge of DOJ’s criminal division at the time.
Wray and Hur also teamed up to do a book review for the conservative Federalist Society’s Engage magazine in February 2007. The duo reviewed former George W. Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft’s book Never Again on his tenure as chief law enforcement officer during and after the 9/11 attacks.
Garland provided a timeline of events to explain why he had chosen to select Hur as special counsel on Thursday.
The attorney general said that on Nov. 4, the National Archives inspector general told a prosecutor at the Justice Department that the White House had informed them about the records found at the Penn Biden Center, with Garland noting, “That office was not authorized for storage of classified documents.”
The FBI began its assessment of whether the classified records had been mishandled on Nov. 9, Garland said, and on Nov. 14, Garland assigned Lausch to conduct an initial investigation into the matter to help the attorney general decide whether to appoint a special counsel.
Garland said Biden’s personal lawyer then told Lausch on Dec. 20 that more classified documents were found “in the garage” of Biden’s personal home in Wilmington, Delaware. The FBI went there and secured those documents too.
Garland said Lausch then briefed him on Jan. 5 about the results of the initial investigation, with Lausch advising Garland that “a special counsel was warranted.”
Lausch then continued his investigation while the Justice Department identified Hur as the best pick for special counsel.
“This morning, President Biden’s personal counsel called Mr. Lausch and stated that an additional document with classified markings was identified at the president’s personal residence,” Garland said. Biden had said earlier Thursday that a classified record had been found in his “personal library.”
Lausch had told Garland he could not do the special counsel gig because he is leaving the Justice Department for the private sector later this year, and Hur got the job.
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Until very recently, Hur had been a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, where he was part of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group and its National Security Practice Group. Hur was also appointed to the board of regents for the University System of Maryland by outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) in June 2021.
Hur went to Harvard College for undergrad and then went on to Stanford Law School. He then clerked for then-Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a nominee of President Richard Nixon, as well as for Reagan-nominated Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.