# Robert Hur **Robert K. Hur** (born 1973) is the [[Special Counsel]] who investigated [[Joe Biden]]'s handling of classified documents. In 2024 he declined to bring charges but described Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," a line that became a significant liability for Biden's 2024 campaign. He is a Republican lawyer and a former Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney. Since leaving government he has represented institutions defending themselves *against* the second Trump administration. ## Career - **Clerkships:** Judge Alex Kozinski (Ninth Circuit), 2001–02; Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]], 2002–03. - **2007–14:** Assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland. - **Trump's first term:** Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, the top aide to Deputy AG [[Rod Rosenstein]]; then **U.S. Attorney for Maryland**, April 2018 to February 2021. - **2021–23:** partner at Gibson Dunn. - **Since September 2024:** partner at King & Spalding, where he had worked before. ## The Biden investigation Attorney General [[Merrick Garland]] appointed Hur on **January 12, 2023**. His report, released **February 8, 2024** (see [[Hur Report]]), ran 345 pages. It found evidence that Biden had willfully retained and disclosed classified material, but not enough to convict. The memory passage was part of his reasoning for not charging: a jury would see Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory. Hur resigned on March 11, 2024 and told the House Judiciary Committee the next day that the assessment was "necessary and accurate and fair." **The audio fight.** Biden asserted executive privilege over the interview recordings on May 16, 2024. The House held Garland in contempt on June 12, 2024, 216–207. Axios published the audio (more than five hours from October 2023) on May 16, 2025, timed to the book *Original Sin*. James Comer's House Oversight inquiry into Biden's decline and the autopen grew out of that release; there is no public record of Hur testifying in it. ## Across the table from the administration, 2025–26 - **Harvard.** On April 14, 2025 Hur and William Burck signed Harvard's letter rejecting the administration's demands. - **The Fed.** In 2026 Hur represented the Federal Reserve Board against Justice Department subpoenas over the headquarters renovation and [[Jerome Powell]]'s testimony. Judge [[James Boasberg]] quashed the subpoenas, and DOJ dropped the probe on April 24, 2026, handing the question to the Fed's inspector general, [[Michael Horowitz]]. That review cleared Powell on September 30. The arc runs from a Republican prosecutor whose report hurt a Democratic president to a defense lawyer for the institutions a Republican administration targeted. ## See Also - [[Hur Report]] · [[Special Counsel]] · [[Federal Prosecutors Hub]] · [[Reports Hub]] - [[Merrick Garland]] · [[Joe Biden]] · [[Mueller Investigation]] - [[Michael Horowitz]] · [[Jerome Powell]]