Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under former president George W. Bush, called for a special counsel to investigate President Biden's classified documents discovered at his Washington, D.C. think tank and his Wilmington, Delaware home.
Gonzales joined "CNN This Morning" on Thursday to discuss the second batch of classified documents discovered at Biden's home and said he would appoint a special counsel based on what has been reported so far.
"Merrick Garland will have to make his own independent decision based upon what he thinks is in the interest of justice, what his investigators are telling him. But if you’re asking me based on what I know, again this is only based upon public reporting, I think if I was making the decision during the Bush Administration, yes, I would have appointed a special counsel. Also in particular because, if we’re finding documents in different jurisdictions, we need someone need to have someone who has authority over all the jurisdictions to conduct an investigation," Gonzales said.
He said he would appoint a special counsel that would have jurisdiction over various U.S. attorney districts.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales joins "CNN This Morning" to discuss Biden's classified documents. (Screenshot/CNN/CNNThisMorning)
BIDEN 'SURPRISED' TO LEARN OF CLASSIFIED DOCS AT PENN THINK TANK: 'I DON'T KNOW' WHAT'S IN THEM
"Once the administration is over, any presidential record is no longer yours. It belongs to the archivist and at that point you have a responsibility to get it to the archivist. But of course, if you’re talking about hundreds of pages of documents, you typically have people doing that and you may not know whether or not you have all the documents that have been turned over. You do your best to make sure that happens. You hope your staff does its job in collecting the information and turning it over. In terms of firsthand knowledge, it’s very difficult for a vice president or a president or even a cabinet secretary to know for sure. And that’s why the White House has been so reluctant to say, this is all there is because they’re I’m sure doing a search right now to confirm that there are no additional documents," he said.
CNN host Don Lemon said during the segment that there were big differences between the documents discovered at the Penn Biden center and the documents discovered at former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
"Quite honestly for people at home, it’s hard for them to see those distinctions. So then it just all looks like the same thing. You’ve got these documents and they shouldn’t be where they are and they've got to get back. The distinction is Biden is saying ‘we want to comply.’ Trump is saying ‘I don’t want to comply.’ That’s how we got to this point. Can you discuss that? Do you understand what I’m saying?" Lemon asked Gonzales.
Gonzales said that different prosecutors were likely to view each case differently and interpret evidence differently in both cases.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks before signing the agreement for Finland and Sweden to be included in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the East Room of the White House on August 9, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
"The fact that former President Trump may be charged shouldn’t make a difference with respect to whether or not President Biden should be charged. And vice a versa. Because facts matter. The American people, I think, need to understand that. I know that's difficult to perhaps accept or comprehend in this politically-charged environment. But that’s the way it works in our justice system," he said.
Former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
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The White House said Monday that a batch of records from Biden's time as vice president in addition to some classified documents were discovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
"Since that discovery, the President's personal attorneys have cooperated with he Archives and the Department of Justice in process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives," Richard Sauber, special counsel to the White House, said in a statement.
On Thursday, the White House acknowledged that a second batch of classified documents were found at Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home.
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