专家说机密文件的发现在乔·拜登总统位于特拉华州威尔明顿的家中以及他在佩恩·拜登中心的旧办公室，司法部长梅里克·加兰正处于两项“前所未有”的特别顾问调查之中。
法律专家和前检察官告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，拜登和唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的平行调查是一种非同寻常的情况，这将不可避免地要求加兰和司法部走钢丝，以避免在调查现任或前任总统是否犯罪时出现任何政治化的迹象。
“我们真的处于未知水域，”加州前联邦检察官、现领导西海岸出庭律师事务所的Neama Rahmani说。
花冠周四宣布他任命前美国司法部长罗伯特·胡尔(Robert Hur)为调查拜登处理机密材料的特别顾问，这些材料显然是他在担任副总统期间保留的。
司法部长此前被任命为特别顾问的杰克·史密斯领导司法部对在特朗普的Mar-a-Lago庄园保留机密文件在佛罗里达。
拜登的律师认为，在他的家中和办公室发现这些机密文件是一个无意的“错误”。
特朗普否认有不当行为，并在没有证据的情况下表示，据称他在家中解密了这些记录。当司法部要求特朗普的律师在法庭上支持他的解密论点时，特朗普的律师也拒绝了，在法庭上，做出虚假声明可能会受到制裁或其他惩罚。
加兰强调，对Hur的任命反映了司法部“在特别敏感的问题上对独立性和问责制的承诺，以及只根据事实和法律做出决定的承诺。”
虽然特别顾问将自主运作，但对于是否指控拜登或特朗普犯罪，如违反《总统记录法》或规定妥善处理机密材料的法规，加兰拥有最终决定权。一位接受美国广播公司采访的专家对加兰只起诉一个人而不起诉另一个人表示怀疑。
“司法部长承受着巨大的压力，”纽约前联邦检察官、现任辩护律师莎拉·克里索夫(Sarah Krissoff)说。
“坦白说，这真是一个前所未有的时刻，令人难以置信，”她补充道。
在这两种情况下，仍不清楚争议中的材料会如何影响国家安全。国会的立法者希望了解这些文件的内容，并要求对这些文件进行情报评估。
与此同时，严格来说，加兰手下还有第三位特别顾问:约翰·达勒姆被任命时任司法部长威廉·巴尔在2020年底调查联邦调查局对特朗普2016年竞选活动与俄罗斯关系的调查的起源。杜伦还没有正式结束他的调查，预计将发布一份报告，加兰可能决定公开发布。
政治在起作用
特朗普已经在利用拜登家中和办公室机密文件的披露来主张选择性起诉——民主党已经对他的联邦执法进行了“武器化”。
他的盟友谴责在处理拜登案件上的“双重标准”，尽管拜登的助手强调他表示愿意合作，归还他担任副总统期间的机密材料，并解释为什么保留这些材料。
众议院共和党人现在是议院的多数派，展开了他们自己的调查拜登不在办公室时对机密文件的处理。许多人抓住了这样一个事实，即联邦特工在Mar-a-Lago执行搜查令后，他的住所没有受到类似的搜查。
“我的意思是，在如何对待前总统和现任总统方面，这里有一个双层司法系统，”肯塔基州众议员詹姆斯·科莫，众议院监督委员会主席，告诉美国广播公司新闻直播主播林西·戴维斯。
根据法庭文件和公开声明，拜登和特朗普的团队似乎在机密文件方面以不同程度的合作回应了政府:国家档案馆表示，它在2021年全年与特朗普的团队谈判，以取回从白宫拿走的15个盒子，最终于2022年1月收到它们，并在当年2月提醒DOJ进行调查，结果发现了更多的机密材料。
相比之下，拜登的律师说，他的律师在11月份首次向国家档案馆提出了拜登的问题。他们强调说，他们是如何迅速归还通过多次搜索找到的文件的。
专家告诉ABC新闻，加兰选择Hur担任特别顾问可能是为了安抚政治化或偏见的担忧。Hur被特朗普任命为美国最大的联邦检察官办公室之一，当时他是马里兰州的首席联邦执法官。
拉赫马尼说:“你需要这样的人，这样就不会出现不是由真正独立的检察官进行调查的情况。”。
特别检察官的调查可能会在2024年竞选的背景下进行。特朗普已经宣布参选，拜登也表示有意连任，但尚未做出正式决定。
这种情况的另一层原因是，根据司法部的长期政策，拜登在任期间不能受到指控，该政策认为弹劾是让总统对其在任期间的行为负责的唯一方法。
但特朗普作为一个普通公民，可以被指控——尽管这样的举动也将是前所未有的。
会不会影响案件的结果?
不管之间的差异专家们表示，这两项调查的一个问题是，特朗普案是否会影响拜登调查，反之亦然。
“特朗普总统正在发生的事情对此有多大影响?”美国广播公司新闻首席法律分析师达恩·阿布拉姆斯在“早安美国”节目中说
"例如，他们会传唤拜登团队吗?"艾布拉姆斯说。“拜登团队会说，‘看，我们已经给了他们我们所有的一切，你们不需要传唤我们。’他们是否会传唤他们，只是为了表明他们使用的法律工具与唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)一案中使用的工具相同?"
专家指出，迄今为止，特朗普和拜登之间的最大区别是:与执法部门的明显合作程度。拜登的律师表示，他们在发现文件后立即通知了国家档案馆，而法庭文件显示，美国国家档案馆和司法部经过一年的努力，试图从特朗普那里拿回文件，联邦调查局对特朗普的家进行了搜查。
“我们真的在看苹果和橘子，但对许多人来说，这看起来像苹果和苹果。我不确定即使司法部发出了最成功的信息，他们也能克服这一点，”克里索夫说。
加兰表示，他很清楚公众对两位特别检察官的监督。正在调查拜登事件的Hur在一份简短声明中说，他打算“迅速彻底地跟踪事实，不带任何恐惧或偏袒。”
克里索夫表示，如果他们有证据，她预计DOJ将对川普提出指控，并告诉美国广播公司新闻:“如果他们有一个强有力的案件，我预计他们会不顾一切地向前迈进。”
但拉赫马尼表示，机密文件的崩溃似乎是该部门因特朗普的法律问题而对他提起的最严重的刑事案件，他认为，拜登显然对机密文件处理不当的补充已经混淆了画面。
“最终，我不认为试图置身于这类政治水域之外的司法部会起诉一个人而不起诉另一个人，”拉赫马尼说。
'Unprecedented' special counsels for Biden, Trump put 'enormous pressure' on Garland: Experts
Experts say the discovery of classified documents at President Joe Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home and at an old Washington office of his at the Penn Biden Center has put Attorney General Merrick Garland in the middle of two "unprecedented" special counsel investigations.
The parallel probes of both Biden and Donald Trump are an extraordinary circumstance, legal experts and former prosecutors told ABC News, and will inevitably require Garland and the Department of Justice to walk a tightrope to avoid any appearance of politicization while investigating if crimes were broken by the current or former president.
"We're really in uncharted waters here," said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor in California who now leads the firm West Coast Trial Lawyers.
Garland announced on Thursday that he was naming former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel in the investigation of Biden's handling of classified material that he apparently kept from his time as vice president.
The attorney general previously appointed special counsel Jack Smith to lead the Department of Justice's probe into the retention of classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Biden's attorneys have cast the discovery of the classified documents at his home and office as an inadvertent "mistake."
Trump denies wrongdoing and has said, without evidence, that he allegedly declassified the records at his home. Trump's attorneys have also refused when pressed by the Justice Department to back up his declassification argument in court, where making false claims carries the potential for sanctions or other punishment.
Garland stressed Hur's appointment was reflective of the department's "commitment to both independence and accountability, in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions guided only by the facts and the law."
While the special counsels will operate with autonomy, it is Garland who will have the final say over whether to charge either Biden or Trump with a crime, such as violation of the Presidential Records Act or statutes that dictate proper handling of classified material. One expert who spoke to ABC News was skeptical of Garland charging one individual and not the other.
"It's an enormous amount of pressure upon the attorney general," said Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor in New York and current defense attorney.
"This is really an unprecedented moment, mind-boggling frankly," she added.
In both cases, it also remains unclear how the materials at issue could affect national security. Lawmakers in Congress expect to be briefed on their contents and have asked for an intelligence assessment of the documents.
Meanwhile, there is technically a third special counsel also at work under Garland: John Durham was appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr in late 2020 to investigate the origins of the FBI's investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign's ties to Russia. Durham has not formally closed his investigation and is expected to issue a report that Garland could decide to release publicly.
Politics at play
Trump is already using the revelation about classified documents at Biden's home and office to claim selective prosecution -- that the Democratic Party has "weaponized" federal law enforcement against him.
His allies have decried a "double standard" over the handling of Biden's case, though Biden aides highlighted his stated willingness to cooperate in returning the classified material from his vice presidency and in explaining why it was kept.
House Republicans, who are now the majority in the chamber, have launched their own investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents while out of office. Many have seized on the fact that his residence was not similarly raided after federal agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
"I mean, there's a two-tier system of justice here with respect to how the former president [is] treated versus the current president," Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis.
According to court documents and public statements, Biden and Trump's teams seem to have responded to the government with much different levels of cooperation regarding their classified documents: The National Archives said it negotiated with Trump's team throughout 2021 to retrieve 15 boxes taken from the White House, finally receiving them in January 2022 and alerting the DOJ to investigate that February, resulting in the discovery of further classified materials.
The Biden matter, by contrast, was first flagged by his attorneys to the National Archives in November, his lawyers have said. They have stressed how they have readily returned the documents they found over multiple searches.
Experts told ABC News that Garland's selection of Hur to be special counsel was likely an attempt to placate concerns of politicization or bias. Hur was appointed by Trump to serve in one of the largest U.S. attorney's offices in the nation, when he was the chief federal law enforcement officer in Maryland.
"You want someone like that so there's no appearance that it's not in a truly independent prosecutor conducting the investigation," said Rahmani.
The special counsel investigations are likely to play out in the background of the 2024 race. Trump has already announced his candidacy, and Biden has said it's his intention to run for a second term but hasn't made an official decision.
Another layer to the situation is the fact that Biden cannot be charged while he is in office, according to longstanding Department of Justice policy, which views impeachment as the only method to hold a president accountable for their actions while in office.
But Trump, as a private citizen, can be charged -- though such a move would be unprecedented, too.
Will it impact the outcome of the cases?
Despite the differences between the two investigations, experts said one question going forward will be whether the Trump case influences the Biden probe and vice versa.
"How much does what's happening with President Trump impact this?" Dan Abrams, ABC News' chief legal analyst, said during an appearance on "Good Morning America."
"For example, are they going to subpoena the Biden team?" Abrams said. "The Biden team will say, 'Look, we're giving them everything that we have, you don't need to subpoena us.' Do they subpoena them anyway, just to show that they are using the same legal tools that were used in the case of Donald Trump?"
Experts noted the biggest distinction between the Trump and Biden matter so far: the apparent level of cooperation with law enforcement. Biden attorneys have said they immediately notified the National Archives when the documents were found, while court documents show the FBI search of Trump's home came after a yearlong effort by the National Archives and Justice Department to get documents back from him.
"We're really looking at apples and orange, but to many people this is gonna look like apples and apples. And I'm not sure even with the most successful messaging from the Department of Justice, they're going to be able to overcome that," Krissoff said.
Garland has indicated he is well aware of the public scrutiny around both special counsels. Hur, who is investigating the Biden matter, said in a short statement that he intends "to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor."
Krissoff said she expects the DOJ to bring forward charges against Trump if they have the evidence, telling ABC News: "If they have a strong case, I expect they will move forward regardless."
But Rahmani, who said the classified documents debacle appeared to be the department's strongest criminal case against Trump out of his legal troubles, believes the addition of Biden apparently mishandling classified documents has muddied the picture.
"Ultimately, I don't think the Department of Justice, who tries to stay out of these types of political waters, is going to prosecute one individual but not the other," Rahmani said.
