Starting November 10, just a day after Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney to look into the matter, the president’s advisers were in “regular communication,” as Mr. Bauer said in a statement, with partners at the Department of Justice.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times employees can vote, they are not allowed to support or campaign for political candidates or causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies to support a movement or raise money or raise money for any political candidate or electoral cause.
In a letter to Mr. Bauer in mid-November, a senior Justice Department official outlined the next steps: They would need permission to review documents found at the Foreign Affairs Center office. Penn Biden Global Delivery and Engagement, minutes from the Capitol. and the White House. The letter, first revealed by The Washington Post this week, also points to the need to search for other locations where similar documents can be found.
The quiet cooperation continued for weeks, even up to the time Mr. Garland announced the appointment of special counsel Robert K. Hur to investigate the case last week. Just before Mr. Garland spoke, Mr. Bauer called the department to inform him that another page of classified information had been found.
It’s a classic legal strategy for Mr Biden and his top aides – to cooperate fully with investigators in the hope of leaving them with no reason to suspect malicious intent. But it also poses a common challenge for those working in the West Wing: Advice given by the president’s attorneys often doesn’t make for the best public relations strategy.
Such tensions often arise in political investigations. Former President Bill Clinton’s political and media advisers regularly lashed out at his lawyers for withholding information about Clinton’s relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, a former White House intern. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have often begged him not to tweet about lawsuits against him, for fear of upsetting prosecutors.
In Biden’s case, advisers think that the very act of making the discovery of the documents public would set off a political tide that would make the appointment of a special prosecutor inevitable. They argue that the discovery of documents long after leaving office is not unusual and as long as there is no intention to violate the rules of confidential documents, should generally be handled without notice. conflict, so the only thing that can create legal exposure is to attract public attention. pay attention to it.
As Mr Bauer later said in a statement, the attorneys were worried that anything said publicly could be false after further investigation.
