White House-Justice Dept. tensions high as Hur prepares to testify on Hill

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As special counsel, Robert Hur angered the White House by questioning President Biden’s memory in his classified-documents report.

From left, President Biden, Robert Hur and Attorney General Merrick Garland. When Robert K. Hur testifies to Congress on Tuesday about his investigation of President Biden’s handling of classified documents, he is expected to defend a special counsel process created to

prosecutor David Weiss’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings to drag on for years, only to result in a plea deal that embarrassingly collapsed in public and led to Weiss’s appointment as a special counsel. Two indictments quickly followed — on gun and tax charges — that Biden allies say would not be levied against most Americans in similar circumstances.

“It’s the only agency, it’s the only Cabinet position which has an inherent conflict of interest,” said Robert Raben, who worked as an In addition to broad updates to the Justice Department, special counsels are required to flag any significant, public-facing potential investigative steps, such as convening a grand jury, executing a search warrant or interviewing the president. The attorney general is not supposed to interfere on incremental steps even if they believe the special counsel should be taking a different approach, according to multiple current and former Justice Department officials familiar with the process.

But, within the White House, aides find themselves in an awkward position. They are divided about how far to go in slamming the attorney general that Biden picked — or Federal policy says that, outside rare circumstances, White House personnel should not talk to Justice Department officials about pending investigations or cases. Both White House and Justice Department officials say that Garland and Biden have never broken that policy and have neverStill, Biden allies argue that Garland could have selected a range of other qualified individuals for this special counsel role, including those who served in other Republican administrations, not Trump’s.

During Biden’s presidential transition, aides were divided over whom to nominate for attorney general. Ron Klain, who at the time was Biden’s incoming chief of staff, strongly advocated for Garland, positing that the former federal judge and onetime Supreme Court nominee was the best choice to restore independence to the department after the Trump administration.

 

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