Top Biden aides questioned in inquiry into handling of documents

WASHINGTON – The special counsel investigating

United States President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents

while he was vice-president, has interviewed many of Mr Biden’s closest aides and advisers, people familiar with the case said.

Mr Robert Hur’s quiet inquiry over the last nine months into Mr Biden has reached into the upper levels of the White House and the Cabinet, they added.

Those who have been questioned about how government documents came to be stored in a think-tank office set up for Mr Biden after his vice-presidency and in his Delaware home include officials who worked with him both at the tail end of the Obama administration and now.

Among them are Mr Steve Ricchetti, a top White House aide and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the people said.

Prosecutors have also spoken to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been a key Biden foreign policy adviser for decades; Mr Ron Klain, who served as White House chief of staff until earlier in 2023; and Mr Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Centre, who is currently ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Mr Blinken’s interview was previously reported by ABC News.

The investigation, overshadowed by more dramatic developments in the special counsel inquiries into former president Donald Trump and the President’s son, Hunter Biden, is primarily focused on determining the chain of custody for the documents with classified markings found in the offices of Mr Biden’s Washington think-tank and at his house in Delaware, people familiar with the case said.

Mr Hur’s team has also scrutinised whether long-time Biden aides and Mr Biden himself adhered to security protocols in handling and packing up official documents and private notes from his vice-presidency, they said.

One of the thorniest unresolved issues is whether Mr Biden will submit to an interview, typically the final stage of an investigation. He could also answer written questions or interact with Mr Hur’s team through his team of White House and personal lawyers.

A spokesperson for Mr Hur did not comment. A White House spokesperson also declined to comment.

Mr Ricchetti, Mr Klain and Mr Blinken have been key advisers to Mr Biden for over a decade.

Mr Ricchetti, a former lobbyist and adviser to former president Bill Clinton and senator Hillary Clinton, essentially took control of Mr Biden’s post-vice presidential life.

He set up a network of non-profits and academic institutions that would serve as Mr Biden’s base of operations, negotiated the former vice-president’s lucrative book deal and helped to set up the initial structure of the 2020 campaign.

Mr Hur’s investigation does not appear to be comparable in scope or seriousness with

Trump’s retention of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida,

which led to his indictment on charges of mishandling national security documents and conspiring with two of his employees to obstruct government efforts to retrieve them.

Mr Biden’s lawyers immediately notified the National Archives upon discovering the classified documents in late 2022 and have since cooperated with the Justice Department.

Trump, by contrast, put off requests from the archives, initially turned over only a portion of what he had taken, failed to fully respond to a subpoena to return the rest, and ultimately was subjected to a search of his home and office by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents with a search warrant.

But the investigation into Mr Biden, even if it ends without criminal charges, presents political challenges for an incumbent President heading into an election year with low approval numbers.

Trump has misleadingly portrayed Mr Biden’s handling of sensitive government documents as equivalent to or worse than his own.

Trump would almost certainly try to spin a decision by Mr Hur not to prosecute his opponent as proof of a “two-tiered” system of justice rigged to favour Democrats, according to a person close to the former president.

Except for former president Barack Obama, every occupant of the Oval Office since Watergate has confronted a special prosecutor scrutinising him or members of his staff, sometimes for relatively narrow matters, but at other times for issues that have mushroomed into at least the threat of impeachment. NYTIMES