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Joe Biden was interviewed over two days by the US Department of Justice special counsel probing his handling of classified documents that dated back to his tenure as vice-president, the White House said on Monday night.
“As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are co-operating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation,” a White House spokesperson said.
The probe by Robert Hur, a special counsel appointed by attorney-general Merrick Garland, was triggered by the discoveries of classified documents at an office that Biden used after leaving office as vice-president, and later at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware. The White House said Biden’s interview was voluntary and had ended.
Biden’s co-operation with the federal investigation into his handling of classified documents comes as former president Donald Trump is facing charges that he wilfully mishandled government material that is sensitive to US national security in an investigation conducted by special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, had resisted handing over the documents, leading to their seizure during a raid by federal agents on his Mar-a-Lago estate in south Florida in August 2022. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges during the arraignment in a federal court in Miami in June.
The investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents has been an unexpected political dilemma for the White House, though it did not deter the president from launching his bid for re-election, with the Democratic party backing him for a second term.
Hur’s probe has involved interviews with a number of top aides to Biden since it was launched in January. At the time, Garland said the justice department was committed to “both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law”.
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