Biden won't call for redactions in special counsel report on classified documents handling

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post/AP

February 8, 2024 at 12:13 p.m. EST


WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will not seek any redactions in a report by the Justice Department special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents, the White House said Thursday, clearing the way for its release.

White House Counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said the White House had notified the Justice Department that it had completed a review of the report Thursday morning. “In keeping with his commitment to cooperation and transparency throughout this investigation, the president declined to assert privilege over any portion of the report,” he said. The public report may still include some redactions by the Justice Department of any classified information.

The yearlong investigation centered on the improper retention of classified documents by Biden from his time as a senator and as vice president. Sensitive records were found in 2022 and 2023 at his Delaware home and at a private office that he used between his service in the Obama administration and becoming president.

The investigation came amid a wider Justice Department probe that has led to charges against former President Donald Trump, who is accused of unlawfully retaining highly classified documents after he left office and refusing to hand them over to federal officials when demanded.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/biden-hur-garland-classified-documents/94c84c52-c6a2-11ee-bbc9-9b5ca9b20779_story.html

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No paywall (gift)

Short article at post time.

Article now updated.

Original article -

February 8, 2024 at 11:53 a.m. EST


WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden will not seek any redactions in a report by the Justice Department special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents, the White House said Thursday, clearing the way for its release.

White House Counsel's office spokesman Ian Sams said the White House had notified the Justice Department that it had completed a review of the report Thursday morning. "In keeping with his commitment to cooperation and transparency throughout this investigation, the president declined to assert privilege over any portion of the report," he said.

The White House review for potential executive privilege concerns appeared to be the final hurdle before the report would be released to Congress and the public. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a letter to Congress Wednesday that he was committed to disclosing as much of the document as possible once the White House review was complete.

[underpants]

1. Nothing to hide

Let alone outright steal, hide, move, flood, and lie about.

[Brainfodder]

2. Transparency, novel concept Republicans?

[Kid Berwyn]

3. What kind of President does that without IMMUNITY?

One with INTEGRITY.

[ananda]

4. When you've done nothing to worry about...

you don't need redactions.

[Bev54]

5. The report is no doubt going to disparage Biden and give the republicans more to try

and thread that needle. Read Empty Wheel this am, she has called it and it has just been released. Hur is a Rosenstein friend. The media will make it all worse.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/08/michael-bromwich-warns-of-robert-hur-report-ahead-of-release/
Marcy sees Hur and Weiss as:

It seems to me that like Rosenstein they are seeking to preserve what’s left of the GOP as they knew it; rather than aim their fire at the force corrupting it from within…”

[twodogsbarking]

6. The facts will be ignored. The Reps will use this against Biden.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Just bust out these "reminders"

[twodogsbarking]

8. Tell that to ABC, NBC and CBS; or don't because they won't listen. I agree with you but the media sucks out loud.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I "heard" the CBS News radio report here on my local news radio station

and they played it straight. I can't speak for what the TV commentators will do but I will say that November is still a long ways off (almost 9 months) and guaranteed there will be other "drama" going on.

[Grins]

10. It's out. Get pdf and skip to page 385 (384?)

For the one sentence conclusion..

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Yeah I added it to the comments in another OP

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143191452

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. 'Confidential' in name only: Merrick Garland's delicate decision to release the Hur report

In theory, the attorney general could have kept the report secret. In practice, he had only one option. If AG Garland did not release the Hur report, it was going to be either leaked or disclosed by the GOP in a hearing which would give the report far greater exposure and coverage.

Link to tweet

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/09/garland-decision-release-hur-report-00140806

The White House is livid over the Justice Department’s release of a special counsel report that painted a devastating portrait of Joe Biden. But Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to release it was a foregone conclusion — and anything short of publicizing the full report would have been worse.....

In practice, though, burying or censoring the report would have been untenable, former Justice Department leaders say.

They described a high-stakes calculus for both Garland and Hur informed by previous politically sensitive investigations: Special counsel reports have always been made public in recent years, and Garland would have been slammed by Republicans and the press if he tried to keep this one under wraps. Hur, meanwhile, clearly understood that political reality, so the harsh language he included was exactly what he expected the public to see.....

While the DOJ regulations used to appoint special counsels call for their final reports to be confidential and Hur labeled his as such, in recent years it has become customary for attorneys general — facing political pressure — to vow to release them publicly to the extent the law allows.

Despite the caterwauling from the White House this week, the conclusion of Hur’s probe was sure to draw a flurry of Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits from news organizations and Biden’s political foes. House Republicans could also have subpoenaed the report and related records. The letter Biden’s lawyers sent to Hur indicates transcripts exist of the prosecutor’s interviews with Biden, so the memory lapses Hur cited may have become public whether Hur had colorfully characterized them or not......

And while some Justice Department veterans said the buck stops with Garland, others argued that the attorney general had no choice but to release the report Hur delivered. Hur and his team likely would have understood that their words would become public, even though the report was labeled “confidential.”

“Mr. Hur’s report had to be released unedited lest the attorney general were to be accused of protecting President Biden,” Rossi said.

Even if the full report was not leaked, the report would had eventually come out when Comer or Gym Jordan subpoenaed Garland, Hur and the report itself. Disclosure of the full report would have been a bigger deal than releasing the report in full this far in advance of the general election.