The White House clashed with the Justice Department post the release of a report by special counsel Robert Hur last week about President Joe Biden's handling of classified information, according to previously undisclosed correspondence obtained by The New York Times.
The letters exchanged revealed a clash between top Justice Department official Bradley Weinsheimer and Biden's lawyers regarding disparaging comments in the report about the president.
Biden's legal team had expressed concerns about passages in the report that questioned the president's memory and actions despite the special counsel finding no grounds for prosecution. The lawyers argued that Hur's comments "Openly, obviously, and blatantly violate department policy and practice," NYT reported.
On Feb. 7, a day before the report's public release, Biden's lawyers wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asserting that Hur's comments were against department standards.
"Mr. Hur's criticism of President Biden mirrors one of the most widely recognized examples in recent history of inappropriate prosecutor criticism of uncharged conduct," wrote the lawyers.
Weinsheimer, the department's senior career lawyer, responded the next day, rejecting the criticism and defending the report's adherence to department standards.
"The identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly prejudicial because it is not offered to criticize or demean the president; rather, it is offered to explain Special Counsel Hur's conclusions about the president's state of mind in possessing and retaining classified information," Weinsheimer said.
The letters disclose that the White House and the Justice Department sparred over whether the report was comparable to a 2016 news conference by then-F.B.I. Director James B. Comey Jr. criticized Hillary Clinton while recommending against prosecution.
Despite their objections, Biden's lawyers did not explicitly request the withholding of any information from the report or a directive to rewrite it. The report, which concluded that no case should be brought against Biden, has become ammunition for Republicans who argue that the president is too old to serve another term.
The scheduled public testimony of Hur in front of the House Judiciary Committee is expected to further fuel the debate surrounding Biden's suitability for office.
The report by Hur is set for public testimony on March 12 before the House Judiciary Committee. Attorney General Garland had committed to making the report public when appointing Hur to investigate the handling of classified documents from Biden's vice presidency.
