US President Joe Biden did not know that classified documents from his time as vice president were in the offices of his Penn Biden political think tank or at his home in Wilmington, White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre reported to Reuters and the BBC. .

Biden also did not know what was in those classified documents, the White House said after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of sensitive government documents found there.

White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said Biden was “surprised” by the discovery of the documents, but as soon as his team identified them, he immediately notified the National Archives and the Department of Justice.

Asked if President Biden was “careless” with classified documents, Karin Jean-Pierre echoed a statement from Biden’s lawyer who said he “inadvertently lost” the documents.

Again, she says Biden is taking the issue “very seriously.”

White House counsel Richard Sauber said President Biden has “cooperated closely with the Department of Justice throughout its investigation” and will continue to do so with the special counsel.

Sauber says it is “confident” that a thorough investigation will show that classified documents were “inadvertently lost”.

Trump and McCarthy react

Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on Congress to investigate Biden, accusing him of hypocrisy. He tried to compare the investigation to that of former President Donald Trump, who is being investigated for the handling of hundreds of classified files.

In fact, Donald Trump, on his social media platform Truth Social, called on US Attorney General Merrick Garland to “immediately end” the investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified files.

On the same topic: What does Biden risk after discovering the incriminating documents? Differences between Trump and Biden

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that he has appointed Robert K. Gurr, a former federal prosecutor in Maryland and a top Justice Department official, to serve as special counsel to investigate the handling of classified documents found in President Biden’s former office and home. in Delaware.

CNN: Secret documents found in Biden’s office related to Ukraine, Iran and Britain

Among the documents from the time when Joe Biden was vice president, found last fall in the private office of the current head of the White House, there are 10 classified materials, including memos and intelligence reports of the American secret services, which related to topics such as Ukraine, Iran and Great Britain. a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The classified documents found in Biden’s personal office date from 2013-2016, when he was vice president. They were found in three or four boxes, which also contained non-classified documents, but are subject to the law “On Presidential Documents”.

The vast majority of the papers in Biden’s private office were personal documents of the Biden family, including materials related to funeral arrangements for Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s late son, and letters of condolence, a source told CNN. It is unclear whether the boxes of classified documents also contained personal materials, CNN reported.

Who is Robert Goure, the special prosecutor who will investigate the case of Joe Biden

Robert Goure, the special prosecutor who will be in charge of investigating President Joe Biden’s handling of confidential government documents, enjoys a reputation as a professional and has worked for many years in the US administration, including during the mandate of President Donald Trump. , who, by the way, appointed him to head the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Maryland, The Washington Post reports, News.ro reports.

Robert Goure is an accomplished attorney who began his legal career as a Supreme Court clerk, served as a federal prosecutor, led a federal prosecution, was a senior official at the Department of Justice, and worked for some of Washington’s top law firms.

He was a federal prosecutor in the Maryland State Attorney’s Office for many years, serving as an assistant federal prosecutor, then for almost three years as head of that agency.

Born in 1973, he graduated from Harvard and Stanford universities, and after college worked as a legal assistant to former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Robert Gur’s experience as an employee of the Department of Justice included positions at the agency’s headquarters, as well as years as a prosecutor in Maryland.

He served as a senior counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and as a senior advisor to Rod Rosenstein, President Donald Trump’s Deputy Attorney General. Prior to that position, he was a special assistant to Christopher Wray, who at the time headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice and later became director of the FBI.

Then, in 2017, Trump appointed Robert Goure to lead the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, one of the busiest of its kind in the country, where Goure spent seven years as deputy attorney general. Hur took over in April 2018, working on drug trafficking, fraud and violent crime cases. Under Goure’s watch, his office also focused on national security and cybercrime, prosecuting cases involving classified information, the Justice Department said.

In February 2021, Robert Goure left the US Attorney General’s office to become a partner in the Washington office of the prominent law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. According to the firm, Hur brought “decades of experience in public and private practice” to help clients, individuals and companies.

In announcing Hur’s appointment, Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the new special prosecutor’s “long and distinguished career as a prosecutor.” Garland mentioned some of Goure’s previous jobs, including as a federal prosecutor in Maryland. “I will make sure Mr. Goure gets all the resources he needs to do his job,” Garland promised.

In his new role as special counsel, Robert Gurr will be tasked with determining whether Joe Biden broke the law by keeping government documents after he left the US vice president post in 2017.