New evidence revealed this month with the appearance of special counsel Robert Hur, who has been investigating President Joe Biden's document case, may destroy the president's defense in the matter, according to law professor Jonathan Turley.
Hur surfaced to interview the president over the documents, which include some going back to his days as a U.S. senator. And while Justice Department policy prohibits the indictment of a sitting president, Hur may have evidence that the White House has offered false evidence about the discovery of documents, Turley wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill.
"The new evidence could prove transformative, not only for the criminal but the impeachment investigation of the president," he wrote.
The House Oversight Committee this past week released its new timeline on the discovery of the classified documents, which were located in several places associated with Biden, who has said he had no knowledge of or involvement in the documents.
"The most glaring problem is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up," Turley said, noting that some of the documents were found in the Penn Biden Center office Biden was using in Washington, D.C., with others in his garage and library.
Biden has declared he has "no regrets" about his conduct and that he thought the investigation would be over quickly.
Turley noted that it appears that a claim from the White House and Biden's counsel that the National Archives was notified as soon as the documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center was not only false but that they knew it was false.
"Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities," he wrote. "However, it now appears that this was not true."
As it turns out, one of Biden's closest aides is Annie Tomasini, also a close friend of his son Hunter Biden.
According to the Oversight Committee, while Tomasini was working for the president as a top aide, she inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office and almost 20 months before the Biden team said it found the items.
Oversight claims that the White House "omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden's attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials. The timeline also omitted multiple visits from at least five White House employees, including Dana Remus, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, Annie Tomasini, and an unknown staffer."
According to Turley, if this is true, the information "demolishes the timeline" the Biden team has maintained, which could have an immediate impact on the criminal and impeachment investigations.
The timeline has been used to draw a line between the Biden administration and that of former President Donald Trump, where special counsel Jack Smith has charged him with 37 counts in connection with his documents case, noted Turley.
Biden said he was "surprised" when the documents were found in November 2021 and said the archives were called "immediately." His counsel and associates also declared that no further classified documents were found, which turned out to be false, including the ones found at Biden's home and garage.
"Now it appears that the discovery had actually been made months earlier," Turley wrote. "The timeline would now more closely mirror Trump's timeline in the knowing retention of classified material, the failure to turn over all of the classified material despite assurances from counsel, and alleged false accounts about the document's discovery."
It's not clear what Hur can do with the new evidence, but Turley said he has long disagreed with the Justice Department's policy on not indicting a president.
"In his press conference announcing the criminal charges against Trump, Smith declared, 'We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone ... Nothing more, nothing less,'" Turley wrote. "The question for Hur is whether they can also apply to a sitting president. Likewise, if these allegations are true and Biden knowingly committed these crimes, the question for Congress could be whether he should remain as president."