WASHINGTON – President Biden on Friday denied reports that special counsel Robert Hur is seeking to interview him as part of an investigation into Biden’s alleged handling of classified documents.
“There is no such demand and interest,” Biden told reporters after leaving a Pilates class in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., near where he is vacationing at billionaire Tom Steyer’s lakeside home.
NBC News reported earlier this month that Hur’s office and lawyers for the president had been negotiating for about a month about the terms of a possible interview.
A spokeswoman for Hur did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment, nor did a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office or Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer.
An interview could open the 80-year-old president, who tends to tell embellished or completely inaccurate stories in public, to significant legal and political danger.
Lying to a federal agent is itself a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and can even be used to justify articles of impeachment — as it did after then-President Bill Clinton falsely said in a 1998 legal deposition that he had never had “a relationship sexual ” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
NBC News reported earlier this month that Hur’s office and the president’s lawyer had been negotiating for about a month about the terms of a possible interview.AP
Such an interview would come at a particularly sensitive time as House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), are on the verge of launching an impeachment inquiry into the president’s alleged involvement in the foreign business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden. .
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate the handling of Biden’s record since his vice presidency and Senate on Jan. 12, but skeptics have noted a lack of clear investigative steps since then.
Hur was Maryland US Attorney from 2018 to 2021 — after serving under then-deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.
A former Justice Department official told The Post after Hur’s appointment as special counsel that he was widely seen as a “campaign” of Rosenstein, who was a frequent target of former President Donald Trump’s ire.
Hur’s reported interest in the interview follows the June indictment of Trump, who is seeking a rematch against Biden in next year’s election, for allegedly mishandling national security records taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in early 2021.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate the handling of Biden’s record since his vice presidency and Senate on January 12, but skeptics have noted a lack of clear investigative steps since then.REUTERS
Special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump could land the 77-year-old former president in prison for a maximum of 450 years.
Trump also faces three other unrelated criminal cases and has denied wrongdoing across the board.
Biden blasted Trump as “irresponsible” last September for keeping classified documents at his Palm Beach compound, which is controlled by the Secret Service – before classified documents were also found in Biden’s office in Wilmington, Del., the president’s DC home and office.
Biden’s lawyers said they initially found the classified documents on Nov. 2 while cleaning out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill.
Some of them have reportedly been marked as “top secret” and related to Iran and Ukraine.
Hur’s reported interest in the interview follows the June indictment of Trump, who is seeking a rematch against Biden in next year’s election, for allegedly mishandling national security records taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in 2021.AP
The findings six days before the midterm elections were kept quiet, even though Trump’s alleged mishandling of records was a major midterm election issue following the August 8, 2022 FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago.
Additional classified documents were found Dec. 20 in Biden’s Wilmington garage, followed by a series of additional finds at the home, including by the FBI, which also searched the President’s Rehoboth, Del., vacation home and left with written notes.
Some of the records found by the FBI reportedly date back to Biden’s 36 years as a senator from Delaware, before he rose to the vice presidency in 2009.
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Biden has sought to downplay the controversy, saying in a Feb. 8 PBS interview, “As far as I know, the kind of thing they’re taking is the thing that’s — from 1974, a misguided paper.”
“It’s not there,” Biden told reporters Jan. 19 during a visit to California.
Biden first publicly acknowledged the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center during a Jan. 10 news conference in Mexico City — only after CBS News broke the story the day before.
In his opening remarks, Biden did not say that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage and gave the impression that only one set of records had been found.
Biden went on to acknowledge on January 12 that some classified records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, which lacked Secret Service protection for the period before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign, but denied he was reckless with national secrets.
“My Corvette is in the locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting on the street,” Biden said.
The White House said at the time that the records search was complete, but additional documents were found by Biden’s lawyers. An FBI search turned up six more items with classification marks.
First son Hunter Biden, who is under federal investigation for possible tax fraud, money laundering and illegal foreign lobbying, frequently visits the Wilmington home, according to records from his former laptop, and lists the home as his own residence on background check forms 2018.
Another special counsel investigation focused on Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which often overlapped with his father’s role as vice president.
Delaware US Attorney David Weiss was elevated by Garland as special counsel on Aug. 11 so he could file charges against Hunter Biden outside his district — though the move was slammed by Republicans who said an IRS whistleblower said Weiss’ office prevented them from investigating Joe Biden’s role in charged in foreign affairs before US attorneys approved an unusual trial-only plea deal that was rejected by a federal judge.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
