The Democratic National Committee has reportedly allocated a minimum of $1.7 million towards legal fees, paying law firms that represented President Biden during the investigation conducted by special counsel Robert Hur into his management of classified documents, as per federal spending disclosures.
Hur ultimately chose not to prosecute the president. However, in a lengthy report earlier this year, he stated that Mr. Biden had knowingly kept and disclosed classified materials even after his vice presidency ended in 2017.
According to federal records, the committee has paid Bob Bauer PLLC over $1 million from July 2023 to February of this year. Bauer, who previously served as the president’s personal attorney in the documents matter, received these payments. The records also indicate that Hemenway and Barnes, a law firm, received monthly payments of $100,000 during a similar time frame. This information was first reported by Axios on Friday.
During the interview with the special counsel in October 2023, President was accompanied by Bauer and former Justice Department official David Laufman. Jennifer Miller, an attorney at Hemenway and Barnes, also joined the president’s personal legal team.
Bauer declined to comment, according to a spokesperson. Before the Justice Department investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents in late 2022, both Bauer and Hemenway and Barnes had provided legal services to the DNC.
Both Mr. Biden and former President Donald Trump are utilizing political donations to cover their legal fees and entanglements. Although Mr. Trump’s expenses far exceed those of Mr. Biden, both individuals are relying on financial support from supporters to address these costs.
Recently, Mr. Biden’s reelection campaign voiced their disapproval of Trump’s approach of depending on politically aligned groups to handle legal fees. The Biden campaign issued a press release, emphasizing their financial advantage over Trump and pointing out that supporters of Trump have spent significant amounts of money on his legal defense.
According to a statement from Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for the DNC, he firmly stated that the payments made by the DNC to the president’s attorneys should not be compared to Trump’s actions of seeking donations for his legal issues.
According to Floyd, the DNC takes a different approach when it comes to handling legal bills. Unlike Donald Trump, who seeks legal fees from his supporters and utilizes his bank accounts as a personal piggy bank, the DNC ensures that not a single penny from grassroots donors is spent on legal expenses.
CBS News reached out to the Democratic National Committee, as well as representatives of the president and his legal team, inquiring about the funding for Mr. Biden’s legal expenses in the documents.
No one was willing to give a direct response.
“I mean, his private attorney represents him personally. Therefore, I would simply state that it’s his private attorney,” explained Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary.