It was revealed Thursday Jan. 12 that United States Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Former United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur as special counsel to investigate a discrepancy at the National Archives regarding some documents missing from then Vice President Joe Biden’s office.
Hur’s job will be to assess damages regarding the misplacement of these classified documents and to uncover any wrongdoing. The documents were found in the President’s home in Delaware and his Washington D.C. strategic office. The documents were then turned over by Biden’s lawyers.
“This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law,” said Garland.
This incident of missing classified documents drew similarities to former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of documents during his administration that culminated in the FBI raid of his Maralago estate in Florida. However, officials say these incidents are not the same, as the scope of these alleged crimes vary wildly.
According to reporting from CNN, the National Archives; a government agency dedicated to protecting and preserving public records, discovered a cove of missing documents from the Trump presidency and asked for those documents be returned, the twice-impeached Donald Trump refused to comply. This obstruction led to the Justice Department issuing a subpoena, which the Trump party failed to comply with.
To ease the drama, Trump’s team sent only a fraction of the documents to the National Archives and when the Archives asked if there were any more missing documents, Trump’s team said no. Which is what led to the warrant for the Aug. 8, 2022 raid. The constant non-compliance from the Trump team is what forced the raid, and, not as the right would put it, the “Deep State.”
The case of Biden’s missing documents paints a duller, more bureaucracy filled picture. Only a “small number” of documents were misplaced as opposed to the 184 documents missing from Trump’s archive as alleged via court filings. That number seems to be widdledown to 10 documents as reported by CBS News. Right now, the White House has issued statements regarding the issue but has neglected to put it at the forefront of the administration’s agenda. Some media outlets have also strayed away from comparing the two cases in an attempt to differentiate the matters.
The contingencies have not stirred away pundits from ringing the warning bells. Lawyer and former law professor Alan Dershowitz suggested on FOX News that if Democrats would not prosecute Biden, the Trump’s legal troubles would dissipate.
“I do not think we see criminal prosecution against either,” Dershowitz said. “If there was ever a chance that Donald Trump would have been prosecuted for what he did, that is disappearing as a result of this kind of politics, where everything has to be equal and whatever is good for one has to go to the other.”
“Where is the FBI? Where is the dramatic raid?” Rep. Ronny Jackson tweeted. “We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them (Democrats) and one for us (Republicans).”
Now, it is unclear whether either president will face charges, but the White House stands firm in its cooperation during the investigation.
“Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” said Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber.
Emmanuel Rivas Valenzuela is the sports editor and may be reached at [email protected]: @rivasemmanuel2 on Instagram
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