Below is my column in The Hill on new evidence released by the House Oversight Committee challenging the account of President Joe Biden and the White House on the discovery of classified material in various locations. If the earlier search included these classified documents, the new timeline will shatter the long-standing claims of the President.
Here is the column:
This month, the sudden appearance of Special Counsel Robert Hur caused as much of a stir as Bigfoot suddenly appearing on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Unlike his counterpart, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has been aggressively prosecuting former president Donald Trump, Hur has virtually disappeared since his appointment to investigate President Joe Biden. Hur surfaced to interview Biden over his possession of classified documents, including some that go back to his time as a U.S. senator.
I have referred to Hur as a “neutron prosecutor” — a special counsel with no possible charge, under Justice Department policy barring the indictment of a sitting president. If that was not enough of a problem, Hur may have growing evidence that accounts offered by the White House over the discovery of the documents are false.
The new evidence could prove transformative, not only for the criminal but the impeachment investigation of the president.
This week, the House Oversight Committee released a new timeline on the discovery of classified documents in various locations associated with Biden. From the outset, many of us flagged problems with the account that had been given by Biden, who insisted that he had no knowledge or involvement in the removal or use of the documents.
The most glaring problem is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up. Some were found in the Penn Center office used by Biden in Washington, D.C. Others were found in his garage and reportedly in his library.
Biden made clear from the beginning that he expected the investigation to be perfunctory and brief. He publicly declared that he has “no regrets” over his own conduct and told the public that the documents investigation would soon peter out when it determined that “there is no ‘there’ there.”
However, it appears that a critical claim by the White House in the scandal may not only be false, but was knowingly false at the time it was made. The White House and Biden’s counsel have long maintained that, as soon as documents were discovered in the D.C. office, they notified the national archives. Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities.
It now appears that this was not true. One of the closest aides to Biden and a close friend to Hunter Biden is Annie Tomasini. She referred to Hunter as her “brother” and signed off messages with “LY” or “love you.”
Tomasini was once a senior aide to Joe Biden and, according to the Oversight Committee, inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office — nearly 20 months before they were said to be found by the Biden team.
The committee now alleges that the White House “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials. The timeline also omitted multiple visits from at least five White House employees, including Dana Remus, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, Annie Tomasini, and an unknown staffer.”
If true, the evidence demolishes the timeline long maintained by the Biden team. That could have an immediate impact on both the criminal and impeachment investigations.
The timeline has been a critical distinction drawn by the White House in distinguishing this matter from the Trump indictment, in which Smith charged the former president with 37 counts, including retaining classified information, obstructing justice and making false statements, and other charges.
Biden insisted that he was entirely “surprised” by the discovery of the documents in Nov. 2022. He echoed the narrative of both his lawyers and the media at large: “And they did what they should have done,” he said. “They immediately called the Archives — immediately called the Archives, turned them over to the Archives, and I was briefed about this discovery.”
In reality, Biden’s counsel and associates conducted repeated searches and declared repeatedly that no further classified documents were found. That was repeatedly found to be untrue.
Moreover, the concern is that Biden’s lawyers, in the course of these private searches, may have consolidated material and contaminated the scene by the time FBI agents conducted their searches. This includes changing how documents were originally stored and whether classified markings were visible to anyone working around the Biden home or garage.
Now it appears that the discovery may have had actually occurred months earlier. The timeline would now more closely mirror Trump’s timeline in the knowing retention of classified material, the failure to turn over all of the classified material despite assurances from counsel, and alleged false accounts about the document’s discovery.
It is not clear what Hur can do if he finds either from witnesses or forensic testing (including perhaps fingerprints on the documents) that President Biden lied.
I have long disagreed with the policy that the Justice Department has long held, that prosecutors should not indict a sitting president. Were he to seek an indictment, Hur would have to ask for reconsideration of the policy based on a decades-old memo issued by the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, who at the time faced calls for an indictment for perjury.
The DOJ policy will also put pressure on the House in its ongoing impeachment inquiry. In my recent testimony at the first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing, I mapped out four possible articles of impeachment. They included obstruction and abuse of power.
If this new timeline is accurate, the question is whether Biden knew that the account being put forward by his staff and counsel was false. It also raises the question of whether the president knowingly possessed classified documents and lied about their removal, use, and discovery. Finally, if Biden repeated his public denials to Hur, there could be added allegations of false statements to federal investigators, another commonly-charged federal crime.
We still have to see if there is evidence to support such crimes, but what is clear is that the past narrative may no longer suffice.
In his press conference announcing the criminal charges against Trump, Smith declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone….Nothing more, nothing less.”
The question for Hur is whether they can also apply to a sitting president. Likewise, if these allegations are true and Biden knowingly committed these crimes, the question for Congress could be whether he should remain as president.
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.
I’m still waiting to see pictures of those documents scattered across the floor…
The clear path:
Investigate and indict “Dana Remus, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, Annie Tomasini, and an unknown staffer.” under the Espionage Act and let the evidence flush out Joe. (or clear him…ROTFLMAO!)
Is saving Israel in the Constitution – “common defense?”
Is saving Israel worth the destruction of the U.S. in World War III?
Just sayin’.
Yes, it is! Should we be supporting Ukraine???
Citation and demonstration please.
So there you have it.
Israel will survive with or without the help of the United States. You sound like a fool who cannot link up two thoughts together and make sense.
Right. And that’s why you read it, because it makes no sense. Gotcha!
You are biting at your own tail.
Would Jesus Christ support the Jewish people and not the Palestinian people or the Palestinian people and not the Jewish people?
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Palestinians have never taken acts against the U.S. while Barack Hussein “Barry Soetoro” Obama, wholly ineligible son of an anti-American, anti-Colonialist, foreign citizen is “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
What the —-, over?
______________________
“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
– Sun Tzu
Would Jesus Christ support the Jewish people and not the Palestinian people or the Palestinian people and not the Jewish people?
Jesus Christ supported Abraham Lincoln and would most certainly reject any idiot who equates Lincoln with Karl Marx, particularly an idiot who posts ad nauseam the same shtick day after day after day. Get the drift
Georgeanonymous?As always, thank you for reading. Your support is truly appreciated
Wait! Did Jesus tell you that?
Does anyone seriously expect the corrupt Biden department of Justice to act against Joe biden?
“Jailing Political Opponents: Abraham Lincoln and Habeas Corpus”
“Abraham Lincoln is known as “The Great Emancipator.” But not many people know that during the Civil War, he jailed as many as 2,000 political opponents without charges or trial. The
story in this episode revolves around what happened in Baltimore, Maryland in 1861 and why it led to the Mayor, the Police Chief, the entire City Council and many more being jailed
indefinitely in a suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus.”
– Michael Kent
_________________
“The clause in the Constitution which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is in the ninth section of the first article. This article is devoted to the Legislative Department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the Executive Department.”
“I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the President in any emergency or in any state of things can authorize the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or arrest a citizen except in aid of the judicial power.”
“I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome.”
– Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, May 28, 1861 – National Constitution Center
Everything Lincoln did was invalid, illegitimate, illicit, and unconstitutional, beginning with his unconstitutional denial of fully constitutional secession, followed by everything he did subsequently, including the absolutely unconstitutional, not one but three nearly impossible “RECONSTRUCTION Amendments.”
Lincoln caused the commencement of the incremental 163-year implementation of the principles of communism, which once-free America suffers under now.
A 6y.o. Palestinian-American boy was murdered this weekend in a hate crime in Illinois, and his mother was also seriously injured by his murderer.
There should be no place for this bigotry.
where were you 10 days ago?
He was cheering them on.
Now he’s planning to go to that rave fund raiser in Brooklyn
Jonathan: Why do you invariably begin your columns on President Biden with the qualifier “may”? You cite Jim Comer’s press release (10/11/23) and his letter to WH counsel (10/11/23) that claims a different timeline of the discovery of classified material at Penn Biden Center. Comer claims that the review of the material actually began in mid-March of 2021, not 11/222 as claimed by the WH. Comer implies Biden tried to hide classified material. So far there is nothing to support such an allegation.
Before jumping to conclusions perhaps we should wait for Special Counsel Hur’s report of his interview of Biden and his conclusions as well as waiting to see the response of the WH to Comer’s letter. That should be probative of whether there is any basis for Comer’s claims. As often happens with Comer’s investigations they turn out to be a lot of smoke and mirrors–not backed up with facts and evidence.
So far there is nothing to support your attempt to conflate the Biden timeline that “would now more closely mirror Trump’s time in the knowing retention of classified material”. Trump knowingly and intentionally took classified material back to Mar-a-Lago. For over a year Trump refused to return the material to NARA and took steps to hide it from the government. At every step Trump obstructed the government’s attempts to recover the material. Biden didn’t do any of that.
Amazing how stupid you are!
Dennis McIntyre, you clearly overlook that Donald Trump is a President and Joe Biden was a Vice President. The privilege afforded to past Presidents is allowed while no such privilege is afforded to Vice Presidents. Why did both Trump and Biden want to keep classified documents? They both wanted to protect the rewriting of by people just like you. One was allowed to do so by his office and one was not. One eas raided by the FBI and the other was tipped. There’s no disputing this course of events no matter how hard you work to slowly turn the gaslight down low. You most certainly must have retired from the gas company because your still producing so much of it today. Phew
Thinkitthrough: There you go again. So much misinformation. No president has a “privilege” to take classified material after he leaves office. Where is that “privilege” in the PRA? You won’t find it. If DJT thought he had such a “privilege” he would have asserted it by now in Jack Smith’s criminal indictment down in Florida. Unlike Biden, DJT knowingly took classified material he knew didn’t belong to him. What was his motive? To use those docs as leverage against his domestic political opponents and maybe to even sell them to foreign actors to seek an advantage.
You are also misinformed about how the FBI conducted its searches of Mar-a-Lago and Biden’s offices and home. You falsely claim “one eas (sic) raided by the FBI and the other was tipped”. As to the search of Mar-a-Lago it was not an unannounced “raid”. The Secret Service was notified in advance. Everyone at Mar-a-Lago knew what was going to happen. As to the FBI search of Biden’s offices and home the FBI did not “tip” Biden in advance. When his lawyers found a handful of classified docs they immediately notified the FBI and NARA. You have it backwards!
I don’t know where you get your information. Perhaps, it’s reading JT’s dime store novels or what you read in the right-wing media. But none of it is based on the facts and evidence. Maybe your mind has been affected by that slow gal leak in your furnace. Better get it fixed before it’s too late!
. No president has a “privilege” to take classified material after he leaves office.
They are not classified documents they are personal records.
Per SCOTUS
Actually most of them are agency records, per their classification markings. It’s not the first time that this has been pointed out to you.
It is not the first time you have ignored SCOTUS,
You have two controlling concepts.
1. the Presidential Records Act. Legislation created by Article I congressional power. Except the Separation of powers clearly states one Branch of govt cannot tell any other branch how to operate. Congress cannot force the Executive to follow the rules demanded by congress. The PRA is a civil, not criminal statute. NEVER has the PRA been used criminally.
2. Classification: This in not in the constitution. It lives 100%, with no opportunity of review. The Executive Branch determines what is classified and how it is handled. Those rules are written by the President of the United States. With plenary power to do has he, and only he, deems appropriate. The classification eco system is controlled by the President through executive order.
When you say the documents belong to the agency, you fail to expain exactly who the agency takes orders from.
ALL executive Branch Agencies are under the sole power of the President of the United States. That means those documents are always under the Ultimante control of the President of the United States. Again, these facts are not reviewable by any other branch of Government. Also the documents or not one off originals, they are copies.
Not the Above does no apply to Senators or Vice Presidents.
“When you say the documents belong to the agency, you fail to expain exactly who the agency takes orders from.”
Because that’s an irrelevant detail with respect to this topic. The agency records are subject to the Federal Records Act (signed into law by the Executive), not the Presidential Records Act.
Again, retard, because you can’t seem to get it through your thick skull: Federal Records Act. Not Presidential Records Act.
A document created by the Executive Branch is controlled by the President of the United States
Agency records are controlled by the FRA, which the President signed into law, whether you can admit it or not.
The Presidents signature does not validate a law as constitutional
Is the President the singular head of all federal agencies. Hence the keeper of all federal records.
As for “It is not the first time you have ignored SCOTUS,” you haven’t said what SCOTUS ruling you’re talking about.
There is a conflict as to who determines the proper place for the document.
Who has the constitutional power to over rule the President if the United States.
In a court case involving federal laws, the court will decide. POTUS is Biden. Trump is a former president.
And if Biden leaves with agencie documents and claim them as personal papers, no one has the constitutional power to challenge Bidens claim.
You have yet to answer who has the constitutional power to challenge the claim of President Trump.
Trump is no longer President. Biden and his designees (e.g., the DOJ) can challenge Trump’s claims.
IF Trump claims in court that the records are personal records, THEN Smith can challenge it, and it will be resolved by the courts. The Courts have the constitutional power to resolve legal questions, per the Constitution.
“. . . one eas (sic) [sic] . . .”
One can only hope…
I don’t understand why a timeline would even matter when you have someone who stole classified documents. He had no right or power to take of declassify them.
Luckily we have WW3 to distract us from the little problem of “Biden’s” flagrant corruption.
Honestly I don’t think we’re going to do much other than float around the Med.
All by design.
Is there anything Joe Biden is not surprised by. Those that are demented by age or otherwise are consistently surprised by each day because they often don’t remember what happened the day before, never matter what happened months to a few years ago. Sometimes the severity of memory loss is less in the long term memories and the more recent memories are more at risk. This lasts for a period of time but then all memories are at risk. I think we might already be at that point of loss of both recent and long term memories.
Pure horse pucky 🙂 After all he remember both good old Corn Pop with perfect clarity and that his degenerate son is the “smartest guy” he knows.
Under DOJ policy, Biden can’t be indicted while President but his aids can be. The threat of indictment can also be used against them to extract information. Hur will have to write a report, which should be public. The report can be used by the House in its impeachment inquiry, if it is published in time. That is the most that can come of this.
Prof. Turley writes: “Biden insisted that he was entirely “surprised” by the discovery of the documents in Nov. 2021.” Since the topic is timeline, doesn’t he mean 2022?
“There is no ‘there’ there” – Joe Biden’s honesty; the integrity of our justice system; Robert Hur’s competence.
Sounds like they’re figuring out a way to get rid of both of them before the election….
There is a question of whether he should remain as president over numerous issues and broken laws, such as his failure to support and follow the US Constitution!
Biden is a well known to be a serial liar, so this is no surprise. Trump should not have been prosecuted for bringing home classified documents, either should Biden, in my view. What a waste of tax payer dollars.
I would have thought that having the extraordinary privilege of “private searches” while your FBI agents wait outside like good little Democratic lapdogs would have taken care of this little “document problem” right ? I suspect that Robeert Hur will quietly remain the neutron prosecutor and nothing will happen. Thank you, Jonathn, for an excellent article.
Jon why do you keep thinking there is a Rule of Law in America?
So?
The DOJ, FBI, SS, IRS, DC Judges, etc are 100% corrupt for Democrats
and the GOP keeps funding THE CORRUPTION!
Nothing will happen! I could arrest the Bidens on a 100 counts of crimes…tomorrow, just with what I know!
Did anyone go to jail for the Russian Hoax Conspiracy? Or were they just removed and given million dollar jobs in thanks?
How about UPENN gives Biden $2 Million for NO SHOW JOB….President of UPENN gets to be Ambassador to Germany?
NOTHING WILL HAPPEN…your government is a Machiavellian Fascist MESS!
The obvious response is Biden declassified the documents the moment he became President.
That would not resolve the issue regarding him having the documents while not being the president.
I am still awaiting the pictures and movies from the FBI raiding his house/garage because people are saying that nobody is above the law..
But will not hold my breath..
Biden can always present that defense. As Nancy Pelosi said, everyone has the right to a trial to prove their innocence.