What to know about Robert Hur and his DOJ investigation into President Joe Biden

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers Wednesday that a report from Justice Department special counsel investigating President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents will be made public soon, the Associated Press reported.

Formerly Maryland’s top prosecutor, Robert Kyoung Hur has led the probe since early last year when Attorney General Merrick Garland called him out of retirement to appoint him as special counsel.

While announcing the appointment, Garland expressed confidence in Hur's ability to lead the investigation in an "even-handed and urgent manner."

"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law," Garland said last January.

After his appointment, Hur said in a statement that he would "conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment," according to The Associated Press. "I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”

Hur interviewed President Biden in October

As part of the inquiry, Hur met with the president in a two-day voluntary interview at the White House in October.

"As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are cooperating with this investigation," White House spokesperson Iam Sams said in a statement at the time. "As it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation."

Hur's investigation has run parallel to special counsel Jack Smith's inquiry into former President Donald Trump, his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election and the transfer of highly classified government documents to his Florida estate at the end of his term.

The a key contrast between the two inquiries is that Biden alerted authorities about the classified records, while the majority of Trump’s were seized under subpoena and during an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate.

What is Robert Hur's experience?

Before his short-lived retirement, Hur headed the District of Maryland, one of the largest and busiest U.S. Attorney’s offices, from 2018 to 2021.

In that role he oversaw the successful prosecutions of white supremacists, COVID-19 fund fraudsters, Asian hate crime perpetrators and drug cartel kingpins. His office also worked on the long-running investigation and prosecution of former National Security Agency contractor Harold Martin, who was accused of taking a “breathtaking” amount of classified material and storing it in his Glen Burnie, Maryland, home.

For his work as a U.S. Attorney, Hur received the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for superior performance and excellence as a lawyer.

Before he became Maryland's top prosecutor, Hur was the principal associate deputy attorney general at the U.S Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. from 2017 to 2018. In the position, Hur was a member of the department's senior leadership team and the principal counselor to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, assisting him with oversight of all components of the department, according to the department.

Hur earned his law degree from Stanford University, where he was executive editor of the Stanford Law Review. He then worked as a law clerk for then-Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist after graduating.

Hur led work group on anti-Asian American violence

In March 2021, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tapped Hur – who is Asian American – to lead a state work group on anti-Asian American violence. The panel was tasked with meeting with affected groups, analyzing crimes against Asian Americans and making recommendations to improve policing efforts and the prosecution of related hate crimes.

Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Maryland Democrats, praised Hur’s work to establish the Baltimore Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which created a permanent federal, state and local law enforcement partnership to combat violent crime in Baltimore.

'Some jobs that are unpleasant but need to be done'

Rosenstein, who was deputy attorney general during the Trump administration, brought Hur to serve as his top assistant and help supervise the work of then-special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the contentious investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The inquiry shadowed much of Trump’s presidency and would later catalog the then-president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation, though he was not charged.

Rosenstein represents a link to much of Hur’s time at the Justice Department: he hired him as a line prosecutor in Maryland in 2007, brought him to Washington in 2017 and later recommended him for the job as Maryland’s chief prosecutor, the same job Rosenstein held before his work as deputy attorney general.

"He understands that there are some jobs that are unpleasant but need to be done and done right," Rosenstein has said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Robert Hur, the attorney investigating President Joe Biden?