Bob Bauer: The man behind Biden's classified documents strategy - CNN

President Joe Biden was facing the prospect of an imminent federal investigation after the discovery of classified documents at his former Washington office in November – and it was up to Bob Bauer, his personal attorney, to break the news to the White House, two sources familiar with the matter said.

A veteran Democratic attorney and former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, Bauer has developed a knack for telling powerful people things they need – but don’t necessarily want – to hear, multiple former colleagues said.

Like the decision not to disclose the initial discovery of classified documents for more than two months, people familiar with the matter said Biden’s team wanted to avoid public disclosures that could be viewed as getting ahead of and undermining DOJ’s investigation.

The group aware of the matter remained exceedingly small – even as it expanded to include Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain and his senior adviser Mike Donilon – until it became inevitable that the president’s team would need to prepare for it to leak out in the media, people familiar with the details said.

Bauer also wanted to avoid creating a precedent of proactively sharing new information about the case and taking the risk of providing an incomplete picture of an ongoing investigation, the source said – one that DOJ might be compelled to correct.

“Bob is politically sophisticated – he understands all of that – but when he’s functioning in the role of lawyer, he behaves like one, which is to say he is conservative in securing, safeguarding the legal interests of his client,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama who worked with Bauer at the White House.