Republicans are requesting that Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint a special counsel to look into how President Biden handled sensitive information after at least two sets of the 80-year-old president’s confidential documents were found.
More classified documents have reportedly been discovered, according to reports on Wednesday. On Monday, it was revealed that 10 sensitive documents from Biden’s time as vice president, some of which were classified as “top secret,” were taken by the president’s legal team on November 2, 2022, from the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement think tank in Washington and turned over to the National Archives.
On Wednesday, Hawley sent a letter to Garland formally requesting that the DOJ create a special counsel, stating that it looked like Biden had carried out “exactly what President Trump did.”
Hawley continued, “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. I look forward to Merrick Garland’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Joe Biden, just as he did with Trump. It’s only fair.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stated that Biden should be held to the same standards as former President Donald Trump in regards to how he handled the 300 secret documents that were discovered at his Mar-a-Lago club and home after he left office.
Garland appointed Jack Smith, a seasoned prosecutor who previously served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and Nashville, in November to decide whether the 76-year-old former president will be charged with a federal offense in connection with his attempts to rig the 2020 presidential election or his retention of the private government records in Palm Beach, Florida.
Three days after Trump declared his intention to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, Garland revealed that Smith had been chosen to head the government’s inquiries into his conduct.
Meanwhile, President Biden said in a statement, “I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes, they’ve turned over the boxes to the National Archives, and we’re cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon, and there’ll be more detail at that time.”
