(BrightPress.org) – President Biden’s handlers are upset about potentially embarrassing details being released from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into how Biden stored and handled multiple troves of classified documents at his home and offices. The documents came to light in January 2023 after former President Donald Trump had been indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
According to reporting from Axios, Biden’s handlers don’t expect him to be criminally charged in the matter. They are very concerned, however, about a potential public relations nightmare and negative press in an election year. Specifically, the reports highlight images of how the documents were stored and other “embarrassing details.”
The documents were found by Biden’s team in November 2022 at the Penn Biden Center. CBS broke the story in January 2023. Shortly thereafter, more documents were located in a garage at Biden’s private residence. The documents were taken during Biden’s previous terms as Vice President and Senator and were controversial as neither of those offices has the unilateral power to declassify documents, the President does.
White House lawyer Richard Sauber said at the time that the documents weren’t being sought by the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) and that Biden’s team had cooperated with NARA and the DOJ to make sure the records were appropriately retained. These two points were meant to delineate Biden’s offense from Trump’s.
Hur’s report is anticipated to come out soon, and despite the lack of criminal charges, Biden’s team expects political damage nonetheless. Bringing Biden’s document scandal back into the news cycle while his poll numbers are dropping fast can’t help the incumbent President in his quest to achieve reelection.
Axios highlighted how the pictures of documents stored in a bathroom at Mar-A-Lago were damaging to former President Trump. The FBI/NARA/DOJ raid in August 2022 over documents Trump took as part of his presidential papers upon leaving office was the second major indictment against the former president.
There have been some indications that NARA was collaborating with the Biden campaign, including allegations NARA drafted the criminal indictment against former President Trump. NARA also dragged its feet for nearly two years, refusing until the last possible minute to release pseudonymous emails sent by President Biden to the House Oversight Committee. The content of these emails is still unknown to the public, but many believe they contain evidence of Biden’s involvement in illegal financial activities in Ukraine.
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