Authored by Jonathan Turley, op-ed via The Hill,

This month, the sudden appearance of Special Counsel Robert Hur caused as much of a stir as Bigfoot suddenly appearing on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Unlike his counterpart, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has been aggressively prosecuting former president Donald Trump, Hur has virtually disappeared since his appointment to investigate President Joe Biden. Hur surfaced to interview Biden over his possession of classified documents, including some that go back to his time as a U.S. senator.

I have referred to Hur as a “neutron prosecutor” — a special counsel with no possible charge, under Justice Department policy barring the indictment of a sitting president. If that was not enough of a problem, Hur may have growing evidence that accounts offered by the White House over the discovery of the documents are false.

The new evidence could prove transformative, not only for the criminal but the impeachment investigation of the president.

This week, the House Oversight Committee released a new timeline on the discovery of classified documents in various locations associated with Biden. From the outset, many of us flagged problems with the account that had been given by Biden, who insisted that he had no knowledge or involvement in the removal or use of the documents.

The most glaring problem is that, after they were removed at the end of his term as vice president, the documents were repeatedly moved and divided up. Some were found in the Penn Center office used by Biden in Washington, D.C. Others were found in his garage and reportedly in his library. 

Biden made clear from the beginning that he expected the investigation to be perfunctory and brief. He publicly declared that he has “no regrets” over his own conduct and told the public that the documents investigation would soon peter out when it determined that “there is no ‘there’ there.”

Now, however, it appears that a critical claim by the White House in the scandal may not only be false, but was knowingly false at the time it was made. The White House and Biden’s counsel have long maintained that, as soon as documents were discovered in the D.C. office, they notified the national archives. Many asked why they did not call the FBI, but the White House has at least maintained that, unlike Trump, they took immediate action to notify authorities.

However, it now appears that this was not true.

One of the closest aides to Biden and a close friend to Hunter Biden is Annie Tomasini. She referred to Hunter as her “brother” and signed off messages with “LY” or “love you.”

Tomasini was once a senior aide to Joe Biden and, according to the Oversight Committee, inspected the classified material on March 18, 2021, two months after Biden took office — nearly 20 months before they were said to be found by the Biden team.

The committee now alleges that the White House “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating among multiple White House officials, [Kathy] Chung, Penn Biden Center employees, and President Biden’s personal attorneys to retrieve the boxes containing classified materials. The timeline also omitted multiple visits from at least five White House employees, including Dana Remus, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams, Annie Tomasini, and an unknown staffer.”

If true, the evidence demolishes the timeline long maintained by the Biden team. That could have an immediate impact on both the criminal and impeachment investigations.

The timeline has been a critical distinction drawn by the White House in distinguishing this matter from the Trump indictment, in which Smith charged the former president with 37 counts, including retaining classified information, obstructing justice and making false statements, and other charges.

Biden insisted that he was entirely “surprised” by the discovery of the documents in Nov. 2021.

He echoed the narrative of both his lawyers and the media at large:

“And they did what they should have done,” he said.

“They immediately called the Archives — immediately called the Archives, turned them over to the Archives, and I was briefed about this discovery.”

In reality, Biden’s counsel and associates conducted repeated searches and declared repeatedly that no further classified documents were found. That was repeatedly found to be untrue.

Moreover, the concern is that Biden’s lawyers, in the course of these private searches, may have consolidated material and contaminated the scene by the time FBI agents conducted their searches. This includes changing how documents were originally stored and whether classified markings were visible to anyone working around the Biden home or garage.

Now it appears that the discovery had actually been made months earlier.

The timeline would now more closely mirror Trump’s timeline in the knowing retention of classified material, the failure to turn over all of the classified material despite assurances from counsel, and alleged false accounts about the document’s discovery.

It is not clear what Hur can do if he finds either from witnesses or forensic testing (including perhaps fingerprints on the documents) that President Biden lied.

I have long disagreed with the policy that the Justice Department has long held, that prosecutors should not indict a sitting president. Were he to seek an indictment, Hur would have to ask for reconsideration of the policy based on a decades-old memo issued by the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, who at the time faced calls for an indictment for perjury.

The DOJ policy will also put pressure on the House in its ongoing impeachment inquiry. In my recent testimony at the first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing, I mapped out four possible articles of impeachment. They included obstruction and abuse of power.

If this new timeline is accurate, the question is whether Biden knew that the account being put forward by his staff and counsel was false. It also raises the question of whether the president knowingly possessed classified documents and lied about their removal, use, and discovery. Finally, if Biden repeated his public denials to Hur, there could be added allegations of false statements to federal investigators, another commonly-charged federal crime.

We still have to see if there is evidence to support such crimes, but what is clear is that the past narrative may no longer suffice.

In his press conference announcing the criminal charges against Trump, Smith declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone….Nothing more, nothing less.”

The question for Hur is whether they can also apply to a sitting president. Likewise, if these allegations are true and Biden knowingly committed these crimes, the question for Congress could be whether he should remain as president. 

The United States provided more than $50 billion in aid to over 150 countries and territories, regional funds, and NGOs in 2021.

Each year, Congress appropriates foreign assistance based on national security, commercial, and humanitarian interests.

In this map via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, USAFacts uses data from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to highlight the countries that received the largest portion of aid.

Food Assistance and the War on Drugs

In 2021, the U.S. directed its aid towards nations grappling with internal conflicts and humanitarian crises.

Following the withdrawal of American troops that same year, Afghanistan emerged as the primary recipient of substantial aid, receiving billions of dollars annually as part of the humanitarian response.

Among the top countries benefiting from U.S. assistance are various African nations contending with both famine and internal conflicts. Notably, Colombia stands out in the top 10, receiving millions of dollars to combat drug trafficking.

Israel Leading in Aid Over Time

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has disbursed more than $3.75 trillion in foreign aid (adjusted for inflation).

The post-war years saw foreign aid peak, primarily because of the Marshall Plan. This initiative aimed to assist in restoring the economic infrastructure of post-war Europe.

At its height in 1949, U.S. foreign aid totaled nearly $100 billion.

Israel has been by far the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance. Since the 1940s, Israel has received more than $300 billion, with most of it in military support, aiding the country in developing a missile defense system and other projects.

The primary reason for this foreign aid has been to guarantee U.S. interests in the region, given Israel’s proximity to Syria to the northeast, Hezbollah-influenced Lebanon to the north, and an Islamist insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai to the south.

After a two-decade conflict that took millions of Vietnamese lives and roughly 58,000 American lives, Vietnam is Washington’s second-largest recipient of financial support. This money is used for economic and technological cooperation, military support, and even to aid cleanup efforts from the U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange in Vietnam during the war.

Since 1975, Egypt has been a significant recipient of substantial foreign aid from the United States, primarily as part of diplomatic efforts to mitigate tensions in the Arab-Israeli context.

Washington also sent large aid packages to South Vietnam, South Korea, and other countries during the Cold War.

Since 2003, much of the money has been directed toward Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The Debate Surrounding U.S. Foreign Aid

According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, foreign aid can serve as a means to bolster the United States’ global influence, tackle worldwide challenges, and advance common values.

Nonetheless, the same report reveals that certain Americans and Members of Congress consider foreign aid an expenditure the country cannot afford, given current budget deficits and competing budget priorities.

In 2021, U.S. assistance to other countries accounted for around 0.7% of the federal government’s total expenditures.

Nothing screams 'secure elections' like high turnover of local election officials and workers in key states.

According to The Hill, that's exactly what's going on, after a 'surge of local election officials' have left their posts in recent years. This could leave polling locations with understaffed and inexperienced teams (who might not know all the nuances behind scanning machines and which tables the extra ballot suitcases are stored under?).

UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen is "quite worried" about the turnover of election officials and workers nationwide, but says it's "not surprising" given how the 2020 election played out.

"Some of the language that’s been used against these officials has been really shocking," he told The Hill. "And why would you stay in a job that is high-stress to begin with, when you’re not going to be all that well-paid, and then to face this kind of abuse? People have to be really committed to democracy to want to stay in these jobs. And it’s asking a lot."

Does that mean people who weren't committed to democracy were counting the ballots in 2020?

A Brennan Center survey of local election officials taken in March and April, around the same time many White House candidates were jumping into the race, found that 1 in 5 are expected to be serving in their first presidential election in 2024. 

The rate of turnover found in the survey is equivalent to “one to two local election officials leaving office every day since the 2020 election.” 

Nearly a third said they’d personally been “abused, harassed, or threatened” because of their jobs, and nearly three-quarters said they felt threats have gone up in recent years. Nearly a quarter said they personally know at least one election official or worker who’s left the job due to threats, harassment or fear for their safety.  -The Hill

"Your dedication to public service … can only take you so far, when day after day you have people showing up in your office, or you have phone calls or emails accusing you of not doing everything you can to provide the best election experience, but also secure elections," said Lisa Bryant, chairwoman of the department of political science at California State University, Fresno, and an expert with MIT’s Election Lab. 

Perhaps not covering windows in cardboard, blocking election observers, faking burst pipes to delay voting for two hours, and a national judiciary that dismissed the vast majority of election fraud cases over 'lack of standing' (i.e. no personal harm was suffered, therefore no jury gets to see your evidence), would go a long way to instilling voter confidence.

We digress.

In 2021, the Biden DOJ formed an Election Threats Task Force, citing a "significant increase in the threat of violence" against the 'election community' during and after the 2020 election.

While research hasn't concluded that threats are driving workers out of the field, the turnover appears to be driven by various sources of burnout, such as interfacing with voters, responding to public records requests, fielding media inquiries and dealing with the public scrutiny.

"The job of an election official has gotten increasingly difficult over the last few years, and it has not been matched by how they’re being compensated or whether they have the resources to do all of the additional things on their plate," said Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project.

Maybe if America had a national voter ID, perhaps election workers might feel more comfortable in their jobs?