A special counsel will be tasked with investigating a president’s retention of classified documents at personal redoubts far from the White House. The wrinkle: The current president is joining the former one in facing prosecutorial scrutiny.

That reality for President Biden came into focus with a statement issued by his own attorney general, Merrick Garland, who appointed Robert Hur — a longtime prosecutor — as special counsel Thursday. Mr. Hur previously served as the United States attorney for Maryland and an official in President Trump’s Department of Justice.

Mr. Hur will be charged with investigating the “possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered” at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, in the garage of Mr. Biden’s home at Wilmington, Delaware, and at his private office at Washington.

His appointment comes after John “Jack” Smith was tapped to investigate both the documents found at Mar-a-Lago and the events of January 6. Over the last months Mr. Smith has issued a blizzard of subpoenas, largely in connection with the latter investigation.

By statute, a special counsel is appropriate when the usual course of action would “present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances” and “it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.” 

As special counsel, Mr. Hur will not be subject, in Mr. Garland’s words, to “day to day” supervision by any other member of the DOJ. Mr. Garland pledged to supply him with all “necessary resources” to undertake the investigation into how classified documents made their way to Philadelphia, Wilmington, and a private office at Washington.   

The discovery at Penn of a “small number of documents” in a “locked closet” precipitated the search of the Wilmington residence, Mr. Biden’s lawyers explained. Confidential documents have now been found “among personal and political papers” at Wilmington, largely in a garage that houses the president’s classic Corvette.

Mr. Biden’s attorney acknowledged that an additional “one page” record was nestled among “stored materials in an adjacent room” at the president’s home. They claim that another residence, at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is free of classified documents.  

At a news conference in Mexico, Mr. Biden told reporters, “People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.” His administration claims that it is cooperating fully with the National Archives to secure the documents.     

Mr. Biden, when asked by a reporter why he would store a classified document in a garage next to his Corvette, retorted that “my Corvette’s in a locked garage, so it’s not like it’s sitting out on the street.” That car is a 1967 Stingray, a green convertible with a 350-horsepower V8 engine.