Within 24 hours of the public learning of the existence of a second trove of classified documents stolen from the White House by Joe Biden, this time in his Delaware garage, AG Merrick Garland disposed of a hot potato by appointing Robert Hur, a DC Lawyer and former US Attorney for Maryland as special counsel.

The approved narrative is already emphasizing that he was a Trump appointee but will not mention that presidents usually nominate candidates recommended by a state’s senators, in Hur’s case, liberal Democrats Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen in 2018.

Hur is an expert in crisis management. He is:

…a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, [one of the largest (1400 lawyers) law firms in the country] and Co-Chair of the Firm’s Crisis Management Practice Group. (snip) He is also a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group and the National Security Practice Group

Gibson, Dunn is not known as a Democrat or Republican-affiliated firm. Hur’s fields of concentration as a lawyer are a good fit with the needs of this investigation. So far, so good.  From his bio, you can tell he was the kind of hyper-student that impressed faculty at all the elite schools where he studied.

Mr. Hur received his J.D. from Stanford  Law School, where he served as Executive Editor of the Stanford Law Review, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and won the Kirkwood Moot Court Competition. He served as a law clerk for William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Hur received his A.B. degree, magna cum laude with highest honors, from Harvard College and studied philosophy at King’s College, Cambridge.

 His clerkships seem to indicate he’s not a raving leftist, so I’d say for now that he deserves the benefit it of the doubt. Because everything is about race, we are told, it is worth noting that Hur is a Korean-American.

Hur during his term as US Attorney for the District of Maryland (public domain)

The special counsel appointment may put a lid on the Republican-led House investigating the cover-up of news of the first batch of documents before the 2022 election. That would amount to election interference by the DOJ, and is a legitimate path of inquiry. But the SC’s office can claim that the matter is under investigation and stonewall the public until well after the 2024 election.

But as to the timing of Garland’s announcement, Charlie Savage of the New York Times reports:

Garland’s statement filled in some missing dates on timing. He said that on Dec. 20, Biden’s team reported finding the second batch of documents in the garage at his house in Wilmington. The White House earlier today acknowledged finding that batch and said Biden’s team had reported it “immediately” but did not say when that was. Garland also indicated one additional page

So, Garland and Biden have both known for more than 3 weeks about the second batch and never mentioned anything to the public. And he says that he made the decision to appoint a special counsel before even the first batch become publicly known:

Garland says he made the decision to appoint a special counsel on the recommendation of John Lausch, a United States attorney in Illinois, last week. Notably, that was before the leak to CBS News on Monday that created, tremendous political pressure on Garland to take this step.

Why did Garland wait so long to announce his decision? Waiting until after the “leak” created a bigger furor than would have announcing both sets of documents and the appointment of a special counsel at the same time.

I’ve all along suspected that puppet masters don’t want Biden to run for re-election. Now that the public is on to his senility, the basement strategy of 2020 won’t work in 2024. His track record of inflation, stagnation, and overseas blunders makes matters even worse. Yet we heard unsourced reports that he was planning to announce a run for re-election.

The way the existence of these documents has come to light, and the way Garland orchestrated the appointment of a special counsel adds more evidence to the hypothesis that he is part of a cabal that is easing Biden out of office. If that’s the case, I’d expect Special Counsel Hur to be told to take his time and be very thorough, such that any action would follow the 2024 election. Face it, nobody but Kamala Harris wants Biden driven from office the way Nixon was, before the end of his term. But the same logic they applied to Trump applies to Biden. Running for the presidency with a special counsel investigation and possible criminal prosecution hanging over your head is awkward.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times previews a talking point to come from Biden apologists, one that conflates documents taken home by Biden from his presidency (which he has the authority to declassify) and documents taken from his term as vice president (which he couldn’t declassify and which, if removed from  the White House were therefore stolen.):

 In August, President Biden was asked if it was ever appropriate to take classified materials home. He said yes, with caveats. “I have, in my home, a cabined off space that is completely secure,” he told reporters, adding that he often takes home sensitive documents.

When a reporter followed up by asking if he thought it was acceptable to bring top secret material home, he said: “It depends on the document, and it depends on how secure the room is.” On Dec. 20, Biden’s lawyers found classified documents dating from the Obama era in his garage in Wilmington.

Update: The scene of the crime:

Here’s a shot of Joe Biden’s “locked” GARAGE where he was hiding classified documents. pic.twitter.com/QcxfTZdaMx

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 12, 2023