Special Counsel Report Finds President Biden Willfully Disclosed Classified Documents but No Criminal Charges Warranted

The Special Counsel’s report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as Vice President was released on February 8, 2024. The report, conducted by Special Counsel Robert Hur, found that while President Biden had willfully disclosed classified documents after his vice presidency, no criminal charges were warranted.

The report detailed the investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified information, which began against the backdrop of another special counsel investigation into his predecessor, Donald Trump. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 federal counts of illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents uncovered evidence that President Biden had willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. The report noted that this conduct presented serious risks to national security, given the vulnerability of extraordinarily sensitive information to loss or compromise to America’s adversaries. However, the special counsel determined that prosecution of President Biden was unwarranted based on the aggravating and mitigating factors.

The investigation involved 173 interviews of 147 witnesses, including President Biden himself, and the collection of over 7 million documents from both classified and unclassified sources. The documents included materials related to military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and notebooks containing President Biden’s entries about national security and foreign policy matters that implicated sensitive intelligence sources and methods.

During his eight years as Vice President, President Biden took notes related to classified subjects, including the President’s Daily Brief and National Security Council meetings. The notebooks were kept in his Virginia and Delaware homes and were used as reference material for his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad.” President Biden shared information, including some classified information, from these notebooks with his ghostwriter.

The special counsel determined that the evidence did not establish President Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and listed various potential defenses that could demonstrate that the documents could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake. The ghostwriter deleted audio recordings made for the memoir upon learning of the special counsel’s appointment, but the FBI was able to recover the deleted files from the ghostwriter’s computer. The government considered charging the ghostwriter with obstruction but ultimately decided against it based on their findings.

The special counsel’s report compared President Biden’s response to the federal investigation with former President Trump’s. While President Biden was cooperative with investigators, Trump allegedly refused to return the documents and obstructed justice.

The Justice Department received the report on Monday evening and submitted it to Congress on Thursday. The White House counsel’s office completed its privilege review of the report on Thursday morning, and President Biden declined to assert privilege over any portion, in keeping with his commitment to cooperation and transparency throughout the investigation.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Catherine Herridge is a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News covering national security and intelligence based in Washington, D.C.

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First published on February 8, 2024 / 2:59 PM EST

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