President Biden has hired Bob Bauer, a former Obama administration figure and husband of a senior White House adviser, as his personal lawyer as the Justice Department probes the storage of classified documents.
The White House on Friday confirmed to Fox News that Bauer will represent Biden personally as the special counsel investigates the storage of classified documents at the president’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and his office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur to investigate the classified documents — which date back to Biden’s time as vice president — that Biden’s lawyers had discovered in a private office in D.C. as well as the president’s home and garage.
In his announcement Thursday, Garland said: “This morning, President Biden’s personal counsel called [U.S. Attorney John Lausch] and stated that an additional document bearing classification markings was identified at the President’s personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware.”
Bauer is an entrenched figure in Washington, D.C., and Democratic Party politics, having served under multiple presidents and previously worked with the prestigious law firm Perkins Coie LLP. His former clients and bosses include former President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
He was named White House counsel for Obama in 2009, and general counsel for the former president’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He was also co-counsel to the New Hampshire State Senate in the trial of Chief Justice David Brock in 2000, and counsel to the Democratic leader in the impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Bauer returned to private practice in 2011. In 2013, Obama named him to be co-chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.