Top aides to President Biden involved in his mishandling of classified documents were given plum promotions within 24 hours of the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s damning report, The Post has learned.
Annie Tomasini, a Biden staffer since his Senate days, was named a deputy White House chief of staff on Feb. 8 — and the next day Richard Ruffner moved into Tomasini’s old gig as director of Oval Office operations.
“I don’t think it should shock anyone that the Biden administration promotes people who help them cover up Joe’s abuse of classified information,” said Jim Hanson, president of Worldstrat, a strategic consulting company.
Tomasini, 44, began her career with Biden as his press secretary in 2008 when he was a U.S. senator from Delaware, and worked as a deputy press secretary for him in 2009-2010 as vice president
On the 2020 campaign trail, she served as his traveling chief of staff and joined the administration as director of Oval Office operations when he moved to the White House. Biden’s niece Caroline reported to Tomasini during her uncle’s failed 2008 presidential campaign.
In November 2023, Tomasini was cited by the House Oversight Committee for having visited the Penn Biden Center “to take inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials” in March 2021. Classified documents were later found in the facility in November 2022.
The House Oversight Committee, which has also been investigating the scandal, has sought Tomasini for a transcribed interview but has so far met with stonewalling from the White House.
“The Department of Justice has failed to deliver accountability for President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and now Biden aides involved in the scandal are getting promotions,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) told The Post.
“We’ve requested to interview Annie Tomasini about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents but the White House is blocking her testimony and instead has promoted her to a senior role. The American people expect consequences for mishandling of classified information, not rewards,” he continued.
Richard Ruffner 33, began his career with the Bidens in 2014 as a special assistant to former Second Lady Jill Biden before getting a job with Vice President Biden in the last three months of his term.
Ruffner hung around the retired veep for nearly three years during his time out of office as a personal aide before decamping to the Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting company, in June 2020.
Ruffner’s name is also littered throughout the Hunter Biden hard drive in emails that suggest he is close to the larger family. One 2019 email shows Ruffner declining a $4,900 Venmo payment sent by Hunter Biden that had been earmarked for “dad.”
He rejoined Team Biden as deputy assistant to the president and director of Oval Office operations on Feb 9 — taking Tomasini’s old job — according to the Brookings Institute.
On Feb 8, Special Counsel Robert Hur released the findings of his probe into President Biden’s handing of classified documents, finding that the president “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” but that he would not bring criminal charges because a jury would likely find Biden to be an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Ruffner’s final months with then-Vice President Biden came into the spotlight after classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Delaware home in January 2023.
Ruffner’s role in the removal of documents was first revealed by Kathy Chung during testimony she offered to the House Oversight Committee in November.
Chung, another Biden aide, was given her job with the elder Biden in 2012 after “Hunter Biden called me and asked me if I was interested in the position,” she told the committee.
In her official testimony, Chung named Ruffner — along with other Biden hands like Steve Ricchetti, Melinda Medlin, and Sam Salk — as people who transported then-undiscovered classified materials from the General Services Administration facility to a different D.C. office.
