President Joe Biden's inner circle is reportedly concerned special counsel Robert Hur's investigation into his retention of classified documents could hang over his 2024 presidential campaign like former candidate Hillary Clinton's email server did in 2016.
Biden is unlikely to be charged as former President Donald Trump was, but Hur's upcoming report could prove damaging in the pubic eye during his reelection campaign, Axios reported.
Trump has long argued Biden's classified documents were retained from the decades he was a senator and a vice president, so therefore he could not be protected under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which Trump and his legal team have maintained is central to his defense.
"Biden prosecutors are trying to win an election for him that he has no chance of winning," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday morning. "The American people won't let it happen!"
Hur, a former clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was nominated to be a U.S. attorney under Trump in 2017, could release a potentially damning report any day now, according to Axios.
Biden's Justice Department Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed to make the special counsel report on Hunter Biden public once it is completed, so Hur's report could become public, too, but a DOJ official noted Garland has not committed to that as he did with special counsel David Weiss' report.
"By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it's not like they're sitting out on the street," Biden said last year.
That remark suggests Biden views his classified documents secure, as Trump has — albeit with Trump saying the PRA permits a former president to retain classified documents but not former vice president or senator.
Trump faces 40 counts in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith that will be heard in South Florida.
"Against the backdrop of former President Trump's indictment on charges of willful and deliberate retention of classified documents, the Biden team's drip, drip, drip of information made the discoveries seem even worse," Anthony Coley, a former senior adviser to Garland, wrote in the now-defunct Messenger.
The White House and a spokesperson for Biden attorney Bob Bauer declined to comment to Axios' request for comment.
"Deranged Jack Smith, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, Alvin Bragg, the J6 Committee of Political Thugs (who have deleted and destroyed all evidence and findings), and all of the rest of the Biden prosecutors and 'bad people who hate our country,' are just as guilty as Fani Willis," Trump wrote Saturday in Truth Social post, rounding up all of the leaders of the four indictments the former president is facing. "It's Biden Investigations for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
No president's Justice Department has ever indicted a former president. Biden's DOJ has done it twice against Trump, once in South Florida (classified documents) and a second time in Washington, D.C., (2020 election challenge).
Trump has also faced a 2016 election-related case alleging illegality in the hush-money payments case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Additionally, local prosecutors in New York (James' $370 million civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization) and Fulton County, Georgia (Willis' novel election racketeering case).
Trump also faced a pair of personal defamation lawsuits from E. Jean Carroll in New York City, totaling $83.3 million.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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