Steve Ruark/AP
Robert Hur arrives at US District Court in Baltimore on November 21, 2019.
CNN
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Special counsel Robert Hur has concluded his yearlong investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents at two locations connected to President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday.
Garland said that Hur has submitted his report and that the White House counsel’s office is still reviewing it for executive privilege issues. As soon as that is complete, the attorney general will submit the report to Congress.
The White House counsel’s office expects to conclude its review by the end of the week, according to a spokesperson. Sources close to the investigation told CNN on Monday that Hur’s report is expected to be released in the coming days.
“As I have made clear regarding each Special Counsel who has served since I have taken office, I am committed to making as much of the Special Counsel’s report public as possible,” Garland wrote in his letter to members of the judiciary committees.
The report is expected to provide a detailed and critical look at how Biden and his staff handled sensitive government materials. CNN has previously reported that Hur’s team is not planning to bring any criminal charges, but the report could provide fodder for Biden’s political opponents as he seeks to make his 2024 bid a referendum on Donald Trump.
Biden’s allies fully expect Republicans to seize on the report and try to use it as ammunition – regardless of what it ultimately concludes – and to conflate Biden’s handling of classified documents with Trump’s, despite the major differences in their cases.
Biden is the second US president in a row to face a special counsel investigation while in office. The completion of Hur’s work lifts a cloud that loomed over Biden, but it doesn’t resolve all of his family’s legal problems: A separate special counsel, David Weiss, is still prosecuting his son, Hunter Biden, on federal tax and gun charges.
Garland tapped Hur, a former Trump-appointed US attorney, last year to lead the criminal probe after Biden’s aides found classified files at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and a private office in Washington, DC. Biden himself sat for a voluntary interview in October as part of the probe.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Devan Cole contributed to this report.
