The media is crying foul on President Joe Biden after he was caught making the same maneuvers in special counsel Robert Hur’s probe that he criticized former President Donald Trump for utilizing in his own legal cases.
Axios scooped on Friday that the Democratic National Committee paid Biden’s bills in Hur’s classified documents investigation, putting the president’s acceptance of the funds at odds with his public criticisms of President Trump for using campaign funds to pay his mountain of legal bills. Two sources familiar with the spending, as well as a review of campaign finance records by the outlet, concede that the DNC shelled out approximately $1.5 million to lawyers or firms representing Biden during Hur’s investigation into the handling of classified documents found stored in his home garage.
Appointed by U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland, Hur launched a sprawling investigation beginning in January 2023, interviewing hundreds of witnesses as he sought to understand how or why Biden as vice president ended up leaving the White House with hundreds of documents. Beginning in July of that year and continuing through February 2024, the DNC paid $1.05 million to the shell company belonging to Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer.
The sources add those payments were largely made to handle Hur’s probe and bring on David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who previously oversaw Hillary Clinton’s response to the 2016 revelations about her State Department emails.
During that time, the DNC increased its monthly payments to Hemenway & Barnes from $15,000 to $100,000 which included the hiring of Jennifer Miller, who is listed among Biden’s lawyers in Hur’s February report. The outlet adds it’s unclear how much of the increased payments were for Miller and her work on Biden’s case, and the expanded role the firm was taking in DNC work.
Hur ultimately opted not to pursue charges against President Biden, concluding he is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” who jurors would feel sympathy for if he was charged with mishandling classified documents.
The payments are especially notable in light of stepped-up attacks by Biden surrogates on President Trump’s use of campaign donors to pay for legal representation in his various criminal and civil cases. Last weekend, the campaign finance chair for the president’s reelection campaign told MSNBC that “every single time you give to the campaign, we’re going straight to talk to voters…We are not spending money on legal bills or hawking gold sneakers.”
After President Trump outraised Biden in a single night with his $50 million fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, a deputy campaign manager for the president characterized the event as “a handful of billionaires figuring out how to pay his legal bills.”
Asked by Axios how they distinguish Biden’s actions from those of Trump, a spokesperson replied, “There is no comparison — the DNC does not spend a single penny of grassroots donors’ money on legal bills — unlike Donald Trump, who actively solicits legal fees from his supporters and has drawn down every bank account he can get his hands on, like a personal piggy bank.”
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A recent tally by the New York Times estimates President Trump has spent more than $100 million on legal bills stemming from two cases brought by the Biden Justice Department, two others by Democratic prosecutors, and several civil lawsuits. Most recently, the Republican leader had to post a $175 million bond in order to prevent New York’s Democrat Attorney General Letitia James from proceeding to seize entire skyscrapers after a state judge concluded the Trump empire misrepresented the value of its assets.