司法部长梅里克·加兰通知众议院和参议院司法委员会的领导人，特别顾问罗伯特·胡尔已经结束了对在总统住所发现的机密文件的调查乔·拜登.
加兰说，胡尔已于周一向司法部提交了报告，他仍致力于“尽可能多地公开特别顾问的报告”。
司法部长告诉国会领导人，白宫对其内容进行的潜在行政特权审查尚未完成。
根据加兰的说法，胡尔给了白宫法律顾问办公室和拜登个人法律顾问一个机会，让他们对报告发表评论。
然而，美国广播公司新闻网获悉，据代表其中20名证人的律师称，在此案中合作的证人私下里恳求Hur让他们在报告公开发布前至少审查报告草案的部分内容。
据律师迈克尔·布罗姆维奇(Michael Bromwich)称，在过去的一个月里，他多次向胡尔的团队暗示，如果没有这样的审查，胡尔可能会错过每个客户提供的信息的“适当事实背景”。
但是，正如布罗姆维奇所描述的那样，胡尔的办公室一再告诉他，在报告公开之前，调查中的任何证人都无法看到报告。
乔·拜登总统就国家安全紧急追加拨款发表讲话..
埃文·武契/美联社
“这是一个巨大的程序犯规，不符合公众利益，”布罗姆维奇告诉ABC新闻。
一名代表其他证人的律师表示同意，称他的客户应该能够在Hur的报告发布前审查其草稿。
这场持续的争端凸显出拜登最亲密的助手以及代表他们的律师越来越担心Hur的报告可能会对拜登提出实质性批评，即使报告没有建议对拜登提出指控。
ABC新闻此前报道称，Hur的团队显然发现了与拜登有关的粗心大意的例子。
布罗姆维奇周三在接受美国广播公司(ABC News)采访时表示，他预计从初级员工到高级顾问等许多客户提供的轶事和信息将被纳入Hur的报告中，但他拒绝提供任何细节。
然而，布罗姆维奇指出，Hur的调查影响深远，调查人员甚至采访了近年来在拜登家中参加活动的服务员，以确定他们是否可能接触过机密文件。
“这是一份期待已久的报告，它将被广泛阅读，”前司法部监察长布罗姆维奇说。“准确报道事实比一般的监察长报告更重要。...自愿配合调查并付出大量时间的证人理应得到同样的待遇。”
根据布罗姆维奇的说法，在过去的三十年里，其信息或证词被纳入司法部监察长报告的证人可以在报告发布前审查报告草稿。布罗姆维奇说，特别检察官胡尔没有给予同样的礼遇，他告诉布罗姆维奇其他特别检察官也没有给予同样的礼遇。
加兰于2023年1月任命胡尔为特别顾问，此前总统助手发现了一份一批十份文件在华盛顿特区的佩恩-拜登中心，拜登在担任副总统后在这里保留了一间办公室。
据美国广播公司新闻当时报道，在拜登位于特拉华州威尔明顿的家的车库中再次发现了额外的记录，促使加兰决定任命胡尔为特别顾问。
此后，调查人员采访了多达100名现任和前任官员，包括国务卿安东尼·布林肯、前白宫办公厅主任罗恩·克莱恩和总统之子亨特·拜登。10月，Hur的团队花了两天时间采访拜登本人.
白宫从一开始就强调将与调查人员合作。拜登本人一再否认有任何个人不当行为，并表示他是“惊讶”地得知文件的存在。
在特别顾问杰克·史密斯调查前总统唐纳德·特朗普处理机密记录的背景下，对Hur的调查悄然进行，调查于去年在一项调查中达到高潮40项指控特朗普对此拒不认罪。
特朗普试图将他的情况与拜登的情况联系起来，试图将他们的行为等同起来，并将他的起诉称为司法系统不适当地针对共和党人的结果。
但是记录后来被释放美国国家档案馆表示，拜登的法律团队与国家档案馆官员进行了合作，而联邦检察官指控特朗普故意隐瞒他知道是机密的记录，不让国家档案馆以及后来的美国联邦调查局的调查人员知道。
消息人士告诉ABC新闻，当局显然发现了拜登担任副总统期间粗心大意的情况，但根据目击者对调查人员的说法，在他们看来，拜登2017年离开白宫时从办公室不当取走机密文件更可能是一个错误，而不是犯罪行为。
Special counsel has finished Biden classified docs probe -- but has rebuffed witness requests to review report
Attorney General Merrick Garland has informed the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that special counsel Robert Hur has concluded his investigation into classified documents found at residences associated with PresidentJoe Biden.
Garland said that Hur had submitted his report to the Justice Department on Monday, and that he remained committed to making "as much of the Special Counsel's report public as possible.”
The attorney general told congressional leaders that a White House review of its contents for potential executive privilege had not yet been completed.
According to Garland, Hur gave the White House Counsel's office and Biden's personal counsel an opportunity to provide comments on the report.
However, ABC News has learned that witnesses who cooperated in the case have been privately pleading with Hur to let them review at least portions of a draft of the report before its public release, according to an attorney representing 20 of those witnesses.
According to attorney Michael Bromwich, for the past month he has repeatedly suggested to Hur's team that -- without such a review -- Hur might miss "proper factual context" for the information that each of his clients provided.
But, as Bromwich described it, Hur's office repeatedly told him that none of the witnesses in the probe would be able to see the report before it became public.
"It's a huge process foul, and not in the public interest," Bromwich told ABC News.
An attorney representing other witnesses agreed, saying that his clients should be able to review a draft of Hur's report before its release.
The ongoing dispute underscores a growing concern among Biden's closest aides -- and the attorneys representing them -- that Hur's report could be substantially critical of Biden, even if it doesn't recommend charges against him.
ABC News previously reported that Hur's team had apparently uncovered instances of carelessness related to Biden.
Speaking to ABC News on Wednesday, Bromwich said he expects anecdotes and information provided by many of his clients -- ranging from junior staffers to senior advisers -- to be included in Hur's report, but he declined to offer any specifics.
However, Bromwich noted that Hur's investigation has been so far-reaching that investigators even interviewed waitstaff who had worked an event at Biden's home in recent years to determine if they might have been exposed to classified documents.
"This is a long-anticipated report, and it will be widely read," said Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general. "It's even more important than in your average inspector general report that the facts are reported accurately. ... Witnesses who have voluntarily cooperated with the investigation and given hours of their time deserve no less."
For the past three decades, according to Bromwich, witnesses whose information or testimony were included in Justice Department inspector general reports have been able to review drafts of reports before their release. But Hur, a special counsel, is not offering that same courtesy, telling Bromwich that other special counsels haven't either, Bromwich said.
Garland appointed Hur as special counsel in January of 2023, after aides to the president discovered abatch of ten documentsat the Penn-Biden Center in Washington, D.C., where Biden kept an office after his vice presidency.
A second discovery of additional records in the garage of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home precipitated Garland's decision to assign Hur as special counsel, ABC News reported at the time.
Investigators have since interviewed as many as 100 current and former officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and Hunter Biden, the president's son. In October, Hur's team spent two daysinterviewing Biden himself.
The White House has emphasized from the beginning that it would cooperate with investigators. Biden himself has repeatedly denied any personal wrongdoing and said he was"surprised" to learnof the documents' existence.
The Hur investigation has played out quietly against the backdrop of special counsel Jack Smith's inquiry into former President Donald Trump's handling of classified records, which culminated last year in a40-count indictment, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Trump has sought to link his circumstances to Biden's by trying to draw an equivalence between their conduct and calling his prosecution the result of a justice system improperly targeting Republicans.
But recordssubsequently releasedby the National Archives indicate that Biden's legal team cooperated with National Archives officials, whereas federal prosecutors have accused Trump of deliberately withholding records he knew to be classified from investigators with the National Archives and, later, the FBI.
Sources told ABC News that authorities had apparently uncovered instances of carelessness from Biden's vice presidency, but that -- based on what witnesses told investigators -- it seemed to them that the improper removal of classified documents from Biden's office when he left the White House in 2017 was more likely a mistake than a criminal act.
