As many as 100 witnesses have been interviewed in a wide-ranging investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
The breadth of the ongoing probe has previously been undisclosed.
ABC News spoke with “several” sources who said dozens of witnesses have been interviewed over the past roughly nine months, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, back in January, named attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate whether Biden improperly handled classified documents during his time as Vice President.
Biden, it had been previously discovered, had classified documents strewn about multiple locations, including in a garage alongside his Corvette and inside an office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a “think tank” he used as an honorary professor with the University of Pennsylvania.
ABC describes the ongoing interviews as a “sprawling” investigation by federal prosecutors and FBI agents “targeting an expansive constellation of former aides.”
BREAKING: The federal probe into Pres. Biden's handling of classified documents prior to becoming president has grown into a sprawling investigation, sources say.
— ABC News (@ABC) September 26, 2023
Several sources estimated that as many as 100 witnesses have already been interviewed, with interviews conducted as… pic.twitter.com/cKufCuipBh
Biden Classified Documents Witnesses Suggest He Is Guilty – Of Carelessness
It is certainly very tempting to pounce on this news as evidence that perhaps federal prosecutors are taking the Biden classified documents case more seriously than previously known, or that it is an indication they’re trying to hamstring the President’s campaign, paving the way for a Gavin Newsom or Michelle Obama run.
But the cynic in me says, “Not so fast.”
Maybe, just maybe, they’re being thorough with their handling of the case in order to flesh out an explanation for why Biden isn’t going to be prosecuted the way former President Donald Trump was.
Trump pled “not guilty” to 37 federal charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.
The charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
But take a look at how ABC and their “sources who were present for some of the interviews” frame what is being uncovered in the investigation.
“Authorities had apparently uncovered instances of carelessness from Biden’s vice presidency,” they write, adding that Biden’s mishandling of classified documents “was more likely a mistake than a criminal act.”
Hillary Clinton Was Also Just ‘Extremely Careless’
Hmm – the “carelessness” defense of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?
Hillary Clinton, you may recall, had classified data on a server stored in her home as Secretary of State. In what may be the original obvious display of a two-tiered system of justice on the matter of sensitive documents, she was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Why? Because she was just “careless.”
In a statement by then-FBI Director James Comey in July of 2016, Clinton was found to have “110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains” containing classified information amongst her emails, eight of which “contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent.”
However, Comey said that there was no evidence that Clinton and her aides “intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information” even though “they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
No intent. Simply carelessness. It’s the same playbook, according to these latest sources.
They’re paving the way for Biden to get off scot-free yet again.
The sources ABC News spoke to indicate the special counsel has reached no final determinations as of yet in the classified documents case, and that the investigation is still ongoing.
