Biden interviewed by special counsel in classified papers case

President Biden in the Oval Office

(Image credit: Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

President Biden sat for a "voluntary interview" this weekend with Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating how documents with classified markings ended up at an office the president used in Washington and in his Delaware home, White House spokesman Ian Sams said Monday night. Biden has maintained that he was surprised to learn his papers contained classified material.

The interview, conducted at the White House, "concluded Monday," Sams said. "As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are cooperating with this investigation" and "being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation." Interviewing the high-profile focus of an investigation like this "would typically signal the inquiry is close to the end," Politico reported.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur special counsel in January. Since then, Hur "appears to have been exhaustively interviewing everyone with insight into how the documents were packed and moved," The New York Times reported.

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The Biden inquiry is one of three high-profile classified document cases from the past two years. The Justice Department told former Vice President Mike Pence in June that he would not face prosecution over the dozen or so classified documents his lawyers and the FBI discovered when searching his Indiana home. Biden and Pence both discovered and voluntarily turned over the classified documents found in their possession.

Former President Donald Trump had to be asked, then subpoenaed, to turn over classified documents he brought with him from the White House. The FBI subsequently found dozens more in a raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate. "Unlike Biden, Trump declined to be interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith," Politico noted. Smith has since charged Trump with felonies tied to both his retention of national security secrets and his allegedly illegal efforts to overturn his loss to Biden in 2020.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.