Review of sensitive issues delays potential release of Biden transcript

The White House's assessment of whether to release a transcript of a special counsel interview with President Biden that sparked a political furore is complicated by the sensitive material it covers, including classified information, security measures and discussions that could be subject to executive privilege. said people who knew about it.

The White House has been pressured by reporters seeking the transcript since the release last week of the report by Robert K. Hur, a special counsel who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents from his vice presidency after he had left office. And three Republican chairs of the House oversight committees have done so, too sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland demands that he turn over both the transcript and the audio recording.

But while the White House has indicated it is considering releasing the material to support its claims that Hur's characterization of Mr. Biden's memory as “significantly impaired” was inaccurate and motivated by bias, it has made no commitment to do so to do. and has offered no timetable. It does not appear that such a revelation is imminent, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters about why the review is challenging.

Mr. Hur, who was appointed by Mr. Garland and had previously served as a political appointee in Trump's Justice Department, ruled that “no criminal charges are warranted” against Mr. Biden even though there was classified material from his deputy presidency found at an office and in his home.

While the report said there was some evidence consistent with a conclusion that Mr. Biden deliberately retained the files without authorization, it also said the facts did not prove he did so and that other evidence was consistent with innocent statements .

But even as Mr. Hur concluded there was no criminal case pending, he also portrayed Mr. Biden as an “older man with a bad memory” who forgot in their interview which years his term as vice president began and ended and which years his term as vice president began and ended. year his son Beau died.

In a letter accompanying the report, Mr. Biden's government and personal lawyers — who were present for the interview — sharply disputed Mr. Hur's portrayal of the president's memory as unusually flawed, calling it both unnecessary as well as inaccurate. The pushback immediately raised the question of what the full transcript actually showed.

On February 9, the day after the report was made public, Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the Office of the White House Counsel, said: told reporters that it was a “reasonable question” to ask for the transcript to be released and said they would “need to resolve issues” such as the fact that the interview was about classified material. The White House has since backed down on his comments and declined to comment further.

But people familiar with the matter said classified material was just one of many complexities raised by the review, each related to its own potential bureaucratic process.

As for classified information, the transcript was considered top secret from the start because the interview focused on systems for how classified material is stored and used by presidents, vice presidents and their staffs. Some of the topics discussed in the documents found in Mr. Biden's office and home were also sensitive.

To undergo a declassification review, the transcript would have to be sent to various security-related agencies with an interest in topics discussed for their review and input on whether anything should be redacted before being released to the public, the people noted . These agencies may include the Pentagon, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the CIA

Another problem is that Mr. Biden's home in Delaware was a major focus of the investigation. To the extent that the interview addressed issues such as the layout of the rooms in his home and its security measures, those portions of the transcript apparently need to be reviewed by law enforcement and Secret Service officials to ensure that no material is disclosed that could endanger safety. safety of the president and his family.

Yet another problem, the people said, concerns executive privilege. While Mr. Biden, advised by his lawyers, declined to exercise the privilege to block the release of anything Mr. Hur wanted included in his report, the five-hour interview had a much broader scope than the selections that the special prosecutor mentioned.

Mr Hur apparently asked Mr Biden about deliberations within the Obama administration on foreign policy matters. A key focus of the report was a memo Biden sent to President Barack Obama opposing the latter's decision in 2009, for example, to send a wave of additional troops to the war zone of Afghanistan.

To the extent the interview included a discussion of Mr. Biden's conversations with Mr. Obama, from vice president to president, or broader deliberations within the Cabinet and White House foreign policy team during the Obama administration, the people, the transcript could contain matters that Mr. Biden would choose to keep secret as privileged.

The doctrine of executive privilege allows the executive branch to keep material about high-level internal deliberations secret from Congress or the courts, preventing the disclosure of future internal discussions about how presidents should perform their duties execution is cooled down.

But especially since members of Congress requested the transcript, such redactions could lead to lawsuits later. For example, the House could subpoena the unredacted version of the transcript and then file a lawsuit if Mr. Garland, citing any assertion by Mr. Biden about executive privilege, refused to turn it over.

Against that backdrop, the process for formally asserting executive privilege is multifaceted. Such material is typically submitted by the White House to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, among others, for a review and analysis of whether certain matters are legitimately covered by the privilege as a legal matter.