Hur is expected to deliver a report with his findings at the conclusion of his investigation, which has caused anxiety among the president’s advisers.
Some have privately expressed concern that the investigation will conclude with a politically damaging result as Biden campaigns for re-election, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
Additional concerns are emerging in the White House that Hur, and the Justice Department in general, are too sensitive to Republican congressional oversight of their work, a third source said.
Multiple sources also drew comparisons to former FBI Director James Comey, who issued a harsh rebuke to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign in connection with an investigation into her emails while serving as secretary of state.
Although Clinton was not found guilty of any crime, she was “extremely neglected” in his handling of classified information, Comey said about four months before losing the 2016 election.
Congressional Republicans have raised questions about Hunter Biden’s proximity to classified documents that were stored in the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. wrote a letter to the White House in January questioning whether Hunter Biden had access to any of the classified documents in his father’s possession.
Hunter Biden listed his father’s home in Wilmington as his address on his driver’s license during the period the classified documents were stored there. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, has said Hunter Biden did it because the Wilmington home “was his only permanent address at the time.”
The investigation into Biden’s classified documents has unfolded as his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, is accused of misappropriating documents. Trump also faces accusations that he told a property manager at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that delete security video allegedly showing how his employees moved boxes of documents ahead of an FBI search of the property.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has sought to compare his handling of the documents to Biden’s. The president’s advisers have resisted that comparison, arguing that Biden quickly returned classified documents to the government when they were discovered in his office and then voluntarily allowed federal authorities to search his properties for additional materials.
Carol E. Lee, Monica Alba and Mike Memoli reported from Washington, Zoë Richards from New York.
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