President Joe Biden 'retained classified materials' but won't face criminal charges

© Daniel Schwen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0

President Joe Biden "wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials", a special counsel report stated, but will not face criminal charges. The investigation began over a year ago after several secret documents were found at Biden's home and former private office.

The special counsel, who were ordered to investigate by the US justice department, found that Biden took classified information about the US war in Afghanistan and other national security matters.

Included in the documents was a hand written memo to then President Barack Obama in 2009 opposing a planned troop increase in Afghanistan, and other handwritten notes that related to intelligence briefings and national security meetings.

The report found that Biden found materials in 2017, and reportedly told a writer working on his memoir in February of that year that he had "just found all the classified stuff downstairs."

In 2022 and 2023, sensitive records were found in Biden's home in Delaware, and at a private office that he used in the time between his service in the Obama administration to becoming President.

The investigation was part a wider justice remit into the location of classified documents. That led to charges being brought against Donald Trump, who is accused of unlawfully retaining highly classified documents after he left office, keeping them at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to hand them over to federal officials when requested.

Special Counsel, Robert Hur, who led the investigation said that Biden wouldn't face charges because he may have taken the documents to his home when Vice-President, which gave him the authority to do so, and that he wouldn't have faced charges anyway, given a longstanding justice department policy against charging a sitting President.