{"id":1745455,"date":"2022-11-20T06:06:04","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T11:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1745455"},"modified":"2022-11-20T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T12:32:59","slug":"white-house-claims-biden-did-not-know-ahead-of-time-about-special-counsel-appointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-claims-biden-did-not-know-ahead-of-time-about-special-counsel-appointment\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Claims Biden Did Not Know Ahead of Time About Special Counsel Appointment"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhite-house-claims-biden-did-not-know-ahead-of-time-about-special-counsel-appointment%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1745455&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-joe-biden\">Joe Biden<\/a> did not know prior to Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/biden-administration-appoints-special-prosecutor-for-trump-probe_4872218.html\">announcement<\/a> that Garland was appointing a special counsel to investigate former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-white-house\">White House<\/a> said hours after the announcement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, he was not aware. We were not aware,\u201d White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a press briefing in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Jean-Pierre said the Department of Justice (DOJ), which Garland heads, \u201cmakes decisions about its criminal investigation independently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garland tapped Jack Smith, a prosecutor who was working at The Hague, as a special counsel to take over the investigation into Trump\u2019s handling of documents and portions of a separate probe into whether any person or entity interfered with the transition of power from Trump to Biden, including the electoral certification that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecution of people physically at the Capitol will remain with the DOJ, Garland, a Biden appointee, told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Garland did not take any questions after reading prepared remarks.<\/p>\n<p>Trump criticized the appointment, pointing out that other recent presidents who took presidential records with them when they left office have not been investigated.<\/p>\n<p>Biden has \u201cno reaction\u201d to the appointment, Jean-Pierre said, though she admitted she had not spoken to him between the time that the special counsel was announced and the briefing.<\/p>\n<p>Garland said that appointing Smith was \u201cthe right thing to do\u201d due to \u201cextraordinary circumstances,\u201d including Trump recently announcing he is running for president again and Biden\u2019s indication that he will run for a second term.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said in a statement that he would \u201cexercise independent judgement\u201d and would \u201cmove the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biden delivered remarks during a meeting with business executives in Washington but did not answer any shouted questions.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans panned the appointment and some said they would cut funding to Smith\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThree days ago, President Trump announced a 2024 run. Today, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate President Trump. Joe Biden\u2019s political weaponization of the DOJ is unhinged. We must end this taxpayer-funded witchhunt,\u201d Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats said they supported the move.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe actions of former President Trump are exactly the kind of exceptional circumstances contemplated by the special counsel statute and we must take them seriously, for the sake of our democracy,\u201d Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate majority whip, said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-zachary-stieber\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/WEB_ZacharyStieber-1.jpg\" alt=\"Zachary Stieber\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news for The Epoch Times. He is based in Maryland.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden did not know prior to Attorney General Merrick Garland\u2019s announcement that Garland was appointing a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the White House said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1695402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1745455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1695402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}