Biden to Establish Task Force to Develop Protocol for Handling Classified Documents

On the heels of not being charged by Department of Justice special counsel Robert Hur, President Joe Biden will create a task force to examine protocols for presidential transitions and handling of classified documents and information, the White House said Friday.

Hur’s report issued Thursday determined no criminal charges should be filed against Biden, even though Hur’s investigation found the president “willfully” retained and disclosed highly classified materials when he was a private citizen, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other sensitive national security matters.

“The president is going to appoint a task force to review how transitions look at classified material to ensure that there are better processes in place,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s office, said during a press briefing, “so that when staffs around the building are rushly packing up boxes to try to get out during a transition as quickly as possible, at the same time and up until the very moment, they’re still governing and doing matters of state, they’re going to try to make recommendations that can be fixed. He’s going to appoint a senior government leader to do that.”

Sams said details on the task force will be released “soon.” He said the issue has come to light in the past year, where former President Donald Trump has been charged regarding his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida — to which Trump has pleaded not guilty — and with incidents about classified documents involving Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

“This issue a year ago brought to light is that this is unfortunately a very common occurrence in our country,” Sams said. “The National Archives has talked about how 80 different libraries and collections, just in the last decade or so, have called and said, Oh, we found classified documents in these papers.

“They have a process where you’re supposed to turn those back in. We had the issue with President Biden. Immediately after that, we had the issue with Vice President [Mike] Pence. This is a common occurrence, and the president thinks that we should fix it.”