Grassley, Johnson press DOJ on apparent 'significant factual omission' in special counsel report

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson on Monday asked that Attorney General Merrick Garland account for special counsel Robert Hur's report on President Joe Biden's handling of classified materials making no mention of a batch of materials the National Archives recovered from the president's attorney's office in Boston.

Hur's report became public last week and stated that "[o]ur investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen." It further declined to bring charges against the president, in part, on the basis of his poor memory.

Writing to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Hur, the GOP lawmakers asserted that "[t]here appears to be a significant factual omission in Special Counsel Hur’s report on his office’s investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents."

In March of 2023, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed that it had retrieved nine boxes from the office of Biden attorney Patrick Moore that had been taken from the Penn Biden Center in Washington. Those materials were then transferred to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. At the time, NARA had not reviewed the materials.

"Oddly, Special Counsel Hur’s report did not mention NARA's retrieval of the nine boxes from Mr. Moore's office," the pair wrote. "This apparent omission is significant given that, according to NARA, the Department of Justice requested that NARA recover the boxes. In fact, in March 2023, NARA informed our offices that 'while NARA has not yet reviewed the contents of the nine boxes, the FBI has.'"

"If the FBI did review the contents of the boxes, it is unclear what was found, to include any classified information, and whether the FBI informed Special Counsel Hur’s office of its findings," they went on. "Further, it is unclear if Special Counsel Hur had any awareness of or reviewed the information contained in these nine boxes. It would be extremely troubling if Special Counsel Hur failed to investigate the contents of these nine boxes particularly given that we first publicly revealed the existence of these specific boxes on March 27, 2023—nearly one year ago."

The Republicans set a deadline of Feb. 23 for the DOJ to answer whether Hur reviewed the nine boxes in question and to document their contents.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.