| Robert Hur | |
| Office: | Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice |
| Appointer: | Merrick Garland |
| Term Start: | January 12, 2023 |
| Term End: | March 11, 2024 |
| Office1: | United States Attorney for the District of Maryland |
| President1: | Donald Trump Joe Biden |
| Term Start1: | April 9, 2018 |
| Term End1: | February 15, 2021 |
| Predecessor1: | Rod Rosenstein |
| Successor1: | Erek Barron |
| Birth Name: | Robert Kyoung Hur |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Party: | Republican[1] |
| Education: | Harvard University (BA) King's College, Cambridge (BA) Stanford University (JD) |
Robert Kyoung Hur (born 1973) is an American lawyer appointed by Donald Trump to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland from 2018 to 2021. He previously served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General with the U.S. Department of Justice. Hur oversaw the 2023–2024 investigation into President Joe Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents during Biden's time as vice president.
Hur was born in 1973 in New York City to South Korean parents. His father, Young Hur, was an anesthesiologist, and his mother, Haesook Hur, worked as the office manager for her husband's anesthesiology practice.[2] [3] [4] He was raised in Los Angeles where he attended the Harvard School (now Harvard-Westlake School).[5]
Hur studied English and American literature at Harvard University, graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude. From 1995 to 1996, Hur did graduate study in philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, receiving first-class honours.[6] [7] From 1996 to 1998, he worked for Boston Consulting Group. He then attended Stanford Law School, where he was the executive editor of the Stanford Law Review and won the school's Kirkwood Moot Court Competition. He graduated in 2001 with a Juris Doctor and membership in the Order of the Coif.
After law school, Hur was a law clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2001 to 2002 and for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2002 to 2003.
He then served as Special Assistant and Counsel to Christopher A. Wray, then Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. From 2007 to 2014, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Maryland, where he prosecuted gang violence, drug trafficking and firearms offenses, and white-collar crimes. He was formerly a partner with King & Spalding in Washington, D.C., where his practice focused on government investigations and complex litigation.[8]
Hur rejoined the Department of Justice as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, a top aide to Rod Rosenstein after Rosenstein became Deputy Attorney General. He was a liaison to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.[9]
On November 1, 2017, Hur was nominated by President Donald Trump to be the next United States Attorney for the District of Maryland.[10] On March 22, 2018, his nomination was reported out of committee by voice vote.[11] He was unanimously confirmed in the US Senate by voice vote later the same day.[12] He was sworn in on April 9, 2018.[13]
On February 3, 2021, Hur announced his resignation, effective February 15.[14] Following his departure from the U.S. Attorney position, Hur became a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson Dunn, a national law firm.[15]
See main article: Joe Biden classified documents incident. On January 12, 2023, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to oversee the United States Department of Justice's investigation into President Joe Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents during his time as vice president.[16]
Garland notified Congress on February 7, 2024, that Hur had concluded his investigation, and no charges were recommended.[17] [18] In the final report with which Hur concluded his investigation, he stated that he found “evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen."[19] He concluded that "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter ... even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president", because the "evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." He also cited Biden's memory as a factor, concluding that "Biden would likely present himself to a jury ... as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."[20] [21] [22] The White House rebuked Hur's characterization as inappropriate, politicized commentary that veered from standards of unbiased, legal analysis.[23] [24] [25] Other Democratic Party voices, such as James Carville and David Axelrod, expressed concern that the report would negatively contribute to Biden's image in the ongoing political conversation about age in the 2024 presidential election.[26] [27] Associate deputy attorney general Bradley Weinsheimer, the DOJ's senior nonpolitical career official, rejected White House criticisms in an official response, stating that the report's comments "fall well within the department’s standards for public release".[28] [29]
On March 11, 2024, Hur resigned from the Department of Justice.[30] A redacted version of Hur's interview transcript was released on March 12. According to NPR, the transcript painted "a more nuanced portrait of the president than was described in Hur's report".[31] The Associated Press wrote that "the reality of the situation... isn’t as clear as either Biden or Hur portrayed."[32] According to The Washington Post, "Biden doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be."[33] On the same day, Hur testified about his investigation before the House Judiciary Committee.[34]
Hur married Cara Brewer, an attorney, in 2004. They met two years earlier on a Washington, D.C. subway.
Hur has made donations to the campaigns of at least three Republican political candidates, for less than one thousand dollars combined.[35]