Biden denies special counsel Robert Hur seeking classified docs interview

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Friday denied a report that special counsel Robert Hur is seeking to interview him as part of an investigation into Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

“There’s no such request and no such interest,” Biden told reporters after emerging from a Pilates class in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., near where he is vacationing at billionaire Tom Steyer’s lakefront home.

NBC News reported earlier this month that Hur’s office and attorneys for the president had been negotiating for about a month on the terms of a possible interview.

A spokesman for Hur did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment, nor did a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office or Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer.

An interview could open the 80-year-old president, who is prone to telling embellished or wholly inaccurate stories in public, to significant legal and political peril.

Lying to federal agents is itself a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, and could even be used to justify articles of impeachment — as happened after then-President Bill Clinton said untruthfully in a 1998 legal deposition that he never had “sexual relations” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Such an interview would come at a particularly sensitive time as House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), move closer to launching an impeachment inquiry into the president’s alleged involvement in his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden’s foreign business dealings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate Biden’s handling of records dating to his vice presidency and Senate years on Jan. 12, but skeptics have noted the lack of obvious investigative steps since then.

Hur was Maryland US Attorney from 2018 to 2021 — after serving under then-deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.

A former Justice Department official told The Post upon Hur’s special counsel appointment that he was widely viewed as “a sidekick” of Rosenstein, a frequent target of former President Donald Trump’s rage.

Hur’s reported interest in an interview follows the June indictment of Trump, who is seeking a rematch against Biden in next year’s election, for allegedly mishandling national security records taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in early 2021.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s classified-documents case against Trump could put the 77-year-old former president in prison for a maximum of 450 years.

Trump also faces three other unrelated criminal cases and has denied wrongdoing across the board.

Biden chided Trump as “irresponsible” this past September for retaining classified documents at his Palm Beach compound, which is guarded by Secret Service — before classified documents were also found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home and post-vice presidency DC office.

Biden’s lawyers say they initially found classified documents on Nov. 2 while clearing out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill.

Some of them reportedly were marked “top secret” and pertained to Iran and Ukraine.

The discovery six days before the midterm elections was kept quiet, even though Trump’s alleged mishandling of records was a major midterm election issue following the Aug. 8, 2022, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Additional classified documents were found on Dec. 20 in Biden’s Wilmington garage, followed by a series of additional discoveries at the home, including by the FBI, which also searched the president’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home and left with written notes.

Some of the records found by the FBI reportedly date to Biden’s 36 years as a senator from Delaware, before he attained the vice presidency in 2009.

Biden has sought to downplay the controversy, saying in a Feb. 8 PBS interview, “To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things that — from 1974, stray papers.”

“There is no there there,” Biden told reporters Jan. 19 during a trip to California.

Biden first publicly acknowledged the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center during a Jan. 10 press conference in Mexico City — only after CBS News broke the story the previous day.

In his initial remarks, Biden didn’t say that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage and gave the impression only one set of records was found.

Biden proceeded to acknowledge on Jan. 12 that some classified records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, which lacked Secret Service protection for a period before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign, but denied he was reckless with the nation’s secrets.

“My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Biden said.

The White House said at the time that searches for records were complete, but that additional documents were found by Biden’s lawyers. An FBI search found six more items with classification markings.

First son Hunter Biden, who is under federal investigation for possible tax fraud, money laundering and illegal foreign lobbying, frequently visited the Wilmington home, according to records from his former laptop, and listed the home as his own residence on a 2018 background check form. 

Another special counsel investigation is focused on Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which often overlapped with his father’s role as vice president.

Delaware US attorney David Weiss was elevated by Garland to be a special counsel on Aug. 11 so that he can file charges against Hunter Biden outside his district — though that move was slammed by Republicans who noted IRS whistleblowers said Weiss’ office barred them from investigating Joe Biden’s alleged role in foreign dealings before the US attorney approved an unusual probation-only plea deal that was rejected by a federal judge.