Attorney General Merrick Garland on Jan. 12 appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate the potential mishandling of classified documents by Biden. The matter puts Garland and the Department of Justice in the middle of two special counsel probes of a sitting and former president, a situation experts told ABC News was \"unprecedented\" and places the attorney general under major pressure.

Biden initially said he was \"surprised\" to learn there were documents bearing classified markings found at the Penn Biden Center, and White House special counsel Richard Sauber first said it was a \"mistake.\"

ABC’s Andy Field reports:

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