This is a matter that’s been on my mind on and off since January, 2023, when Attorney General Garland appointed Robert Hur as the special counsel to investigate President Biden’s purported mishandling of some government documents when he left office as vice president. Some documents were found in Biden’s home; others in his then-office in Delaware.
The fact that Andrew Weissmann, a lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation of Trump and a frequent legal commentator, expressed similar concerns about the shadow of this delay jelled with my own angst.
Weissmann is one of my favorite Twitter legal buddies (he knows not me, but he speaks and writes so candidly and clearly—and with such personality—that I feel as though he’s my buddy).
As a reminder, Garland felt obligated to investigate Biden after the FBI had raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and found a treasure trove of purloined classified documents—some of the highest sensitivity—that Trump never willingly returned and still claims are his.
Jack Smith, the career prosecutor whom Garland had previously appointed to investigate the most lawless president in American history, is known for his impartiality. Smith has never been identified with a political party.
Hur, on the other hand, is a Republican who was appointed by Trump to be US Attorney for Maryland and worked in the Justice Department under former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Unfortunately, though Smith has what many legal experts consider an air-tight case against Trump for endangering our national security, Trump’s luck-of-the-draw is Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been so clearly bending in Trump’s direction that it’s hard to see her allowing this case to unfold according to the “arc of justice.”
The circumstances between Trump’s crimes and Biden’s apparent sloppiness (which may have been a staff member’s sloppiness) couldn’t be more stark. Trump’s actions remain a potentially massive national security breach, with new information continually surfacing.
The documents found by Biden’s staffers were few, and he has cooperated throughout.
So it’s not surprising that the Wall Street Journal reported in November that Hur was about to release his final report in “the coming months” and the report is “not expected to result in any criminal charges being brought.” (The WSJ article is behind a firewall; there’s also an article in Forbes.)
But it is surprising that Hur’s report is “likely to include ‘harsh criticism of the president.’”
And it’s also surprising—and concerning—that three months after the completion of his report, Hur has not publicly announced the investigation of Biden has been closed. What the hell is he waiting for?
“Delay” has been Trump’s weapon in preventing the ninety-one indictments against him from being presented to a jury of his peers. It certainly seems like Judge Cannon’s modus operandi. Hur appears to be following this pattern as well.
How much farther into the political season is Hur going to drag his feet?
Remember James Comey’s destructive role in the 2016 election? He went against Justice Department norms in publicly stating that Hillary Clinton’s handling of her emails was under investigation in the first place. Then, about a week before the November election, he said the FBI had reopened an investigation into her emails—only to say just days before the election that the investigation was closed.
A 2018 report from the Justice Department’s inspector general stated that Comey made a “serious error of judgement” in publicly stating he was reopening the investigation.
Why, then, does Hur seem poised to give President Biden a lecture?
Weissmann discussed his worries with his colleague Mary McCord on their very informative and entertaining podcast, “Prosecuting Donald Trump.”
According to my best efforts to transcribe accurately, Weissmann said:
“I’m very concerned about both the timing of it and the content of it. [Hillary’s email case] always struck me as simple—it had to be thorough, but not be lingered over.
“Prosecutors are supposed to have a sense of alacrity and move on it. The longer it goes on, the more it has a life of its own.
“Is Rob Hur going to repeat what Comey did in his press conference in July, 2016? He made a comment that was not appropriate. In these matters, it’s ‘put up or shut up,’ If you’re not announcing an indictment, you do not denigrate the person.
“Is there reason to think that Hur will make an ‘extra-prosecutive statement?’ Or will he have learned you do not do that? These are department principles; it’s a norm, not a statute.”
I know that Attorney General Garland is a strong institutionalist determined to try to persuade the public of his department’s apolitical nature. He has made a point of being hands off and allowing his prosecutors their autonomy.
But the damage that could be done if Rob Hur pulls a Comey would surely set back any efforts Garland’s made—and could wreak havoc on our country.
It seems to me this is the time for Garland to show who’s boss, reminding Hur of the department’s principles. If the facts he’s uncovered warrant closing the case on Biden, he owes it to the public to announce that finding—and say no more.
Pronto!
If, by chance, anyone reading this post has contacts with the Department of Justice, please remind them to remind Hur, emphatically, that he must adhere to the DOJ’s principles.
Annie
annieasksyou... 
In the past I’ve heard the expression that “the wheels of Justice grind slowly.” But what we’ve been witnessing for a few years now is pathetic. The Judge in the Florida documents case has already shown herself to be incompetent (after the Court of Appeals castigated her for her first ruling in the case), yet there she is still dragging her feet. Insofar as the January 6 Insurrection case against trump is concerned, I lay much of the problem at the feet of Merrick Garland, who dragged his feet for over a year before appointing Jack Smith. This case, had it been started at the proper time, would probably be over by now and trump would have been found guilty and incarcerated for his actions.
I’m well aware that trump has presented the legal system with issues heretofore never
anticipated ; however the entire juducial system seems to be running scared. Interpretation of the law is supposedly based on the concept of REASONABILITY. What I’m witnessing now is wholly UNREASONABLE. The words that I want to use here to express my disgust might also be considered unreasonable by my friend, Annie!!
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Alas, I agree with you, Steve, though I think there are disparate reasons for the delays. Cannon’s delays are entirely suspect to me, and my worry in this post is that Hur’s are similarly in bad faith.
I think it’s hard not to hold Garland responsible. But Jack Smith is serving us well and doing a brilliant job, based on everything I’ve read. The concern now is why the DC judges are taking so much time in deciding that Trump is not immune from any and all actions—now and forever, which is what his lawyers are essentially saying.
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Oh goodie … another “October Surprise” … something else to worry about! Sigh. I hadn’t thought about this … well, really much at all, but now I see the potential danger. I agree with you … it’s time for Merrick Garland to step in … NOW!
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After I completed this piece, Jill, I considered not posting it because I’m trying to be encouraging, not alarming. But I hope if more people are discussing it, may somehow the buzz will reach Garland and persuade him he must guide Hur accordingly.
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You were right to post it, Annie. Being encouraging is all good, but we also have to face reality, to be aware of what could happen, for otherwise we are sitting ducks. You were definitely right to post it.
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Thx; the question in my mind is what we can and can’t influence. We can try to influence voting, which we do. Is my posting this info helping us in any way?
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We may not be able to influence, per se, but we can do our part to bring awareness. We can’t force people to act on that awareness, but at least they’ll have the facts. At the end of the day, it is all we can do … better than just sitting around chewing our fingernails, yes? 😊
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If the facts he’s uncovered warrant closing the case on Biden, he owes it to the public to announce that finding—and say no more.
Meh — let sleeping dogs lie.
The closure you seek matters only to sane, rational people.
Robert Hur says there is nothing in the report worthy of charges being filed.
What may happen is the RNC using this to fund-raise, and brainwashed foxbots (neither sane nor rational) will contribute in their poutraged state over their mistaken belief that Biden got away with something.
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If I thought Robert Hur was NOT going to do what the WSJ reported, Kamchack, I would agree with you. But there have been too many rogue legal Rs—Durham comes to mind, as does David Weiss, prosecuting Hunter Biden. I think it’s highly unlikely he feels his work has ended without at least issuing a press release. So the questions of substance and timing remain.
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If Hur is waiting for an opportune time to drop this Nothingburger of a bomb, then there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
The RNC is reporting record low funds on hand, so now would be the time to utilize something like this in the only way I see.
I can only speculate as to the cause of their money problems and the motivation as to why they aren’t aggressively taking steps to correct this shortage.
I think their problem is Trump.
I think they can now see the writing on the wall.
I think they are beginning to tire of him siphoning off political contributions that should benefit down ballot candidates.
A Yahoo/YouGov poll came out this week with a majority of US citizens in favor of a criminal conviction against Trump, and 53% saying that a criminal conviction would disqualify him serving as POTUS.
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I largely agree with you: there are lots of warning signs for the Rs. I am an optimist who worries a lot; I’m glad you reminded me of all the things THEY should be worrying about.
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I’m glad you reminded me of all the things THEY should be worrying about.
Yeah, about that . . . .
I don’t know if you have a policy about posting urls, but here goes:
A significant share of swing voters in key states — even some Republicans — say they would not want to vote for a freshly-convicted criminal.
I reside in Georgia which used to be deep red.
In 2020, Trump implored our SoS to “find 11,000 votes”.
That didn’t happen and Georgia’s EC votes went to Biden.
Trump can’t afford to lose votes, and yet he is the presumptive nominee for the Republican party. And, I don’t get any sense of urgency to replace him with an electable candidate.
My opinion — Republicans can afford to punt on electing a POTUS in this cycle. As far as I can see, there are no openings on the SCOTUS horizon, and with the 6-3 majority they could still afford one Democrat nomination and keep the majority.
The SCOTUS is and has been legislating from the bench with overturning the Roe decision, and maintaining the deregulated business environment they desire, so a congress that doesn’t accomplish a thing is exactly what they want.
If they have miscalculated, it will be their voters just don’t vote, period. It’s one thing to skip the top of the ticket and vote everywhere else, but quite another to not show up.
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The Democratic Party is now doing far better financially than the Republicans; that’s very hopeful. But there are too many deep-pocketed anti-tax, anti-regulation far-rightists who will support whoever opposes Joe Biden. I continue to believe pro-democracy voters will elect him, but I can’t dismiss concerns about the Project 2025 coalition headed by the Heritage Foundation—whose efforts to dismantle the administrative state are in sync with the radical Supreme Court majority—or the dangers posed by the dangerous No Labels hypocrites, who appear to want to throw the electoral college vote into the House. ( I’ve written about both.) Your thoughts, Kamchak?
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My thoughts on the EC?
It worked poorly at best, but I think it WAS somewhat representative (which is exactly what our FFs wanted). In the +200 years of this nation, the EC failed 4 times to reflect the popular vote. The slate(s) of electors aren’t elected by the people, and the process by which they are selected varies from state to state.
The number of EC votes matches the number of House + Senate members.
The House — the Apportionment Act of 1911 capped the number of HoR reps at 435.
The 1910 census put the US population at 92.2 million.
The 2020 census sez we got 335.9 million.
As far as the EC is concerned, the HoR is no longer representative of the US population.
The Senate — the 5 least populous states — Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota — has fewer people than the city of Los Angeles, yet those 5 states combine for a total of 10 EC votes as represented by the Senate.
As far as the EC is concerned, the Senate is no longer representative of the US population.
The decisions made at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia may have been well intended, but it really hasn’t worked out for the average citizen.
The EC should be scrapped — because as it has been shown starting in the late 20th century — the tyranny of the MINORITY is real.
The odds of the EC being taken out back and shot are poor, so the only way I can see it working as intended is a high percentage of voter participation
Fictional POTUS Jed Bartlett once said, “Decisions are made by those who show up.”
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UGH!
Imma having trouble signing in so my apologies if this is a repeat, plus I’ll bring this up top as opposed to a reply down below:
My thoughts on the EC?
It worked poorly at best, but I think it WAS somewhat representative (which is exactly what our FFs wanted). In the +200 years of this nation, the EC failed 4 times to reflect the popular vote. The slate(s) of electors aren’t elected by the people, and the process by which they are selected varies from state to state.
The number of EC votes matches the number of House + Senate members.
The House — the Apportionment Act of 1911 capped the number of HoR reps at 435.
The 1910 census put the US population at 92.2 million.
The 2020 census sez we got 335.9 million.
As far as the EC is concerned, the HoR is no longer representative of the US population.
The Senate — the 5 least populous states — Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota — has fewer people than the city of Los Angeles, yet those 5 states combine for a total of 10 EC votes as represented by the Senate.
As far as the EC is concerned, the Senate is no longer representative of the US population.
The decisions made at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia may have been well intended, but it really hasn’t worked out for the average citizen.
The EC should be scrapped — because as it has been shown starting in the late 20th century — the tyranny of the MINORITY is real.
The odds of the EC being taken out back and shot are poor, so the only way I can see it working as intended is a high percentage of voter participation
Fictional POTUS Jed Bartlett once said, “Decisions are made by those who show up.”
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Sorry you’ve had so much trouble—and very sorry you thought I was asking you about the EC, Kamchak.I agree we’re unlikely to be rid of it any time soon, and we must concentrate on getting as massive turnout as possible.
My question pertained to No Labels, the self-proclaimed “non-partisan, centrist” group whose undisclosed donors include Harlan Crow and Trump supporters.
You may well know all about them, but in case you don’t, I wrote about them here:
This piece from Third Way details their plan:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/the-no-labels-partys-radical-new-plan-to-force-a-contingent-election
No Labels is now suing any group trying to inform voters of their perfidy—including the Maine Sec of State, who acted on complaints from voters that they felt tricked into signing the No Labels petition.
I am hoping that polls (which I place little faith in for the most part) show Biden with a substantial lead before No Labels has its March 24 convention. That may not stop them, but it will reveal their dangerous, blatant hypocrisy.
As I appreciate your optimism, I’m wondering if you’d care to express your thoughts about their potential impact.
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The last time a third party won any EC votes was The American Independent Party in 1968, I think.
H. Ross Perot received nearly 20% of the popular vote in 1992, but didn’t receive any EC votes. I really don’t see the No Labels bunch gaining any traction with their quest. They would hafta mess with the the slate(s) of EC electors, and that didn’t turn out so well in 2020.
The FFs really rogered us with the EC, though. There’s way to much wiggle room built in. The process shoulda been better nailed down with standardized rules for all states.
Voter participation peaked in the early 60s when the electorate rejected Goldwater’s brand of conservatism, and steadily declined. Ten years earlier, Republicans started debating the notion of crawling into bed with the Dixiecrats (historian Kevin Kruse covers this in his current book), but it took the voter’s rejection of Goldwater for them to actually court the southern conservatives and the evangelicals that came with them.
The 1968 fiasco in Chicago certainly helped with the growing voter apathy, Nixon was an unmitigated disaster and Carter was hamstrung by the shenanigans of Reagan’s negotiations with Iran in keeping the hostages until AFTER his inauguration on Jan 20, 1981. A good portion of the public (myself included) became disgusted with politics and just quit showing up to vote. The Reagan “landslide” wasn’t so much a landslide of the US population, as it was a landslide of the people who showed up.
If there is any upside to Trump — he motivated people to get out and vote. The voter participation climbed back up to early 1960s level and lo and behold — the US people are still rejecting Republican conservatism.
Today’s youth are more politically active, they are plugged into information like no group of youth before them, and near as I can tell they are more jaded. I don’t believe they will be easily fooled.
As long as voter participation remains high, I think we will be OK — not perfect and we could definitely get better — but the EC will better represent the will of the people.
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I don’t understand this delay either, nor did I understand Mueller’s delay. Delay only helps this bad actor, Trump, and so i appreciate your concern as to what is taking so long?! Jack Smith is moving ahead, and seems logical, sequential — all good. Still, every day passing is one more in Trump’s pocket, and I really don’t appreciate that!
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Now that the DC Court of Appeals has released its damning response to Trump’s immunity claims, we must hope that SCOTUS will let it stand—and Chutkan can proceed apace.
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Apparently, as per commentators, the appeal would go to John Roberts first, as the court divides the country by jurisdiction and DC belongs to him. If they delay in reaching a decision on whether to hear it, and/or if they then take the case . . . he will have tarnished “his” court forever as being partisan to the thug that seeded it with his picks. My hope is that “the Roberts court” as history will refer to these years may mean more to him than Trump. Let’s see.
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I hadn’t heard that, Denise. Thank you! I share your hope that Roberts will use a firm hand to rein in the justices. It would be nice if such a compelling decision on such a compelling issue were to receive a unanimous thumbs down. Alas, that’s probably unlikely. But the Court has to consider–promptly–the Colorado case with its various threads. So perhaps we’ll see Jack Smith moving ahead in Chutkan’s courtroom in just a few months.
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I hadn’t commented on this before, Annie, but after yesterday, when Robert Hur issued his report, it looks like what you said was very prescient. Not great that Biden actually had these papers in his possession, but the difference in his cooperation with the Justice Department vs. Trump’s lack of that at Mar a Lago is obvious. Hur’s comments about Biden’s age and memory, on the surface of it, aren’t great for Biden, but the fact that Hur included them are rightly being criticized as unnecessary, gratuitous, and political. I think Biden actually brought up the “James Comey moment” re: Hillary Clinton that you do.
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Thanks, George. Not prescient, but I had a bad feeling about Hur from day one.
There’s been a very encouraging rallying around the president by people who deal with him all the time and talk about how sharp he is.
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