The power couple at the center of Biden’s political universe

For more than three decades, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn have risen to the pinnacle of Washington power.

Bauer, the personal attorney for President Joe Biden who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama, is the godfather of Democratic election lawyers. Dunn, an adviser to Biden in the White House who served as communications director under Obama, is the grand dame of the city’s public relations.

Since early November, he has been at the center of Biden’s strategy to handle the discovery of classified documents among papers from his past jobs. That strategy kept the story from the public for more than two months, revealing tensions between the areas where Bauer and Dunn, respectively, are Biden’s most trusted advisers: law and public relations. And it’s a rare moment that has shone a light on a power couple that usually operates behind the scenes with little fanfare and even less criticism.

“If there’s a room of five people, Anita and Bob are two,” said the former White House aide, who asked to remain anonymous because the person was not authorized to speak about White House business.

To better understand Dunn and Bauer’s role in Biden’s orbit, NBC News spoke with more than a dozen former White House and presidential campaign aides, as well as strategists and former colleagues. In most cases, these people asked to remain anonymous – some out of loyalty to their spouses, some out of fear of retribution and some because they were not authorized to speak publicly by their employer. The White House declined to comment on this piece.

The document’s case has created multiple points of friction between the president’s institutional interests, private legal interests and the public interest in transparency. As private attorneys and de facto public communications advisors, Bauer and Dunn are at that point of tension.

Bauer, along with Richard Sauber and Stuart Delery in the White House counsel’s office, were part of the legal core that guided the Biden team’s contacts with the Justice Department and the National Archives and Records Administration, according to a someone who is familiar with his work. The group of White House aides immediately exposed to the discovery was quite large and included Dunn, this person said.

In a statement earlier this month, Bauer said Biden had instructed his lawyers to “come and cooperate” with the DOJ and NARA. He also explained the limitations on public disclosure.

Biden’s personal attorney “has tried to balance the importance of public transparency against the norms and limitations necessary to protect the integrity of the investigation,” Bauer wrote. “These considerations require avoiding the public release of details relevant to the investigation while it is ongoing.”

Prioritizing legal interests over public relations has had short-term political costs and could be a long-term liability, some Democrats say.

“Whatever strategy they’ve put in place has not worked well — the lack of transparency from November to January,” said a second former White House official. “Although there is a good reason for it, it has not satisfied the press, and that creates image problems.”

The ultimate power couple

It is not uncommon for married couples to work for the same politician. In the small circle of Washington politics, it is true how many people meet their spouses. But in the history of presidential politics, few unelected couples have been as influential as Bauer and Dunn — practically furniture in the modern Democratic Oval Office.

As he rose in his own field, often working for the same bosses in Democratic politics, he created a large network of allies, collected tens of millions of dollars, served in prestigious roles and influenced the political fortunes and decisions of many of the most famous figures in the Democratic Party.

Dunn and Bauer have built parallel careers that periodically intertwine. He served as general counsel and he served as communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for nearly 35 years. Married in 1993, they worked together on Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign, with Bauer playing the role of Al Gore in a mock debate. Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader whose operation provided much of the talent for Obama’s team, counts Bauer and Dunn among his advisers. And, of course, he played an important role for Obama and Biden on the campaign trail and in the presidency.

There is a simple reason for his success, according to his allies: he can be trusted to handle difficult tasks competently and wisely.

“People know they can be depended on in the trenches,” said Minyon Moore, who served as political director in Bill Clinton’s White House and has known Dunn and Bauer for decades working in Democratic politics. “For Joe Biden, what he got from both of them is history — they’re veterans, they can’t be surrounded, they don’t need the spotlight. … People can’t be punished for wanting to be real public servants. They don’t have to.”

SKDK is one of Washington’s top PR firms, with a high-powered client list spanning corporate America, Democratic campaigns and the nonprofit world. And in a city where currency is power, Dunn’s long career in the highest echelons of politics has been successful even outside of government.

When Dunn filed his financial disclosures late last year, when he returned to the White House in a full-time position, it showed an investment portfolio worth about $18 million and $46 million to spend.

Former colleagues and assistants describe Dunn as the ultimate strategist, always thinking five and six steps ahead of everyone else.

It was Dunn who recognized at the beginning of Barack Obama’s first campaign that Michelle Obama would be a gift with the public and also felt that Mrs. Obama was not getting the kind of publicity she deserved. He called Stephanie Cutter — a longtime Democratic operative involved with Biden’s 2020 campaign and said she worked with Bauer and Dunn for 25 years, dating back to the Daschle era — and encouraged her to work with Michelle Obama.

At first, Cutter hesitates, but Dunn presses him.

“They were able to see before a lot of other people in the campaign and certainly in the media Michelle’s power on the campaign trail and the leading role she was able to play in the campaign,” Cutter said.

At the end of the Obama administration, Bauer and Dunn helped Biden prepare for a potential bid for the presidency in 2016 — a race he ultimately decided not to run. When he ran in 2020, both were key players in his campaign.

During the darkest days of the year’s primaries for Biden, who lost the first three contests, Dunn temporarily took control of the operation to stabilize it. He also hired Jen O’Malley Dillon, who was Biden’s campaign manager when he dropped the nomination and moved on to the general election.

“He was like a campaign chairman,” a former White House aide said of Dunn. “Nothing — the budget, the hiring, the messaging — no decision is made without Anita coming in or giving input.”

Sometimes, Bauer and Dunn play at the end of a crucial period. Dunn led the search for a vice presidential candidate, made up of a cast of some of America’s top female politicians. At the end of the search is Bauer, who sometimes calls with the candidates or the team when he leads the legal examination. And if Kamala Harris was chosen to be vice president, it was Dunn who called at least one of the other front-runners to ask if she would be vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, people familiar with the calls said.

Perhaps there is no other episode during the campaign that is a symbol of a powerful role than the last day of the 2020 campaign. At the Westin Hotel in Wilmington, Del., only a few top advisers staked out the room where they game out the next step in the fog of the uncalled race – Dunn and Bauer was among them. Bauer is not only the strategic leader who sets the tone of not engaging with Trump’s every whim, but the public face who assures the media that democracy is working.

“Trump has too many legal voices out there in the chorus and Joe has one, and that’s Bob, and Bob is brilliant,” Bradley, a former senator from New Jersey and presidential candidate, said in an interview.

And as aides deluged the network with questions when they were going to call the final of the winner of the presidential election, Dunn alternately worked on the possibility of closing the campaign and moving to the transition.

“Anita drove the train forward,” the former campaign aide said.

Apart from sex?

Dunn entered the Biden White House initially as a temporary employee, receiving a salary of $129,000, under the $132,552 threshold that requires financial disclosure filings. Eventually, Dunn left — returning for a brief one-week stint to fill in for Dillon, the deputy chief of staff — then returning permanently last year when Biden’s legislative agenda was in trouble and his poll numbers were poor.

Many White House aides worked for Dunn at SKDK or were hired by him. Bauer, who is not involved in the administration, has been a sounding board for White House lawyers on potential hires.

His expansive network reflects his years in Democratic politics mentoring new talent. But it also raised concerns among some former Biden aides that the pair were so influential that Biden was prone to brooding over political and legal crises.

“You don’t just have two people, but two very important departments,” said a former Biden aide, referring to communications and legal operations.

Cutter rejects the idea that they have concentrated power.

“Why does it affect them so much? They don’t have the same brain,” Cutter said. “It is offensive to group them together as one entity just because they are married. It is an insult to the decades of achievements that have been achieved as individuals. They are not in the room because they are Bob Bauer and Anita couple. In the room are Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn, who give your own perspective and best advice based on your own thoughts.

In addition, Bradley laughed at the suggestion that the two could use too much influence as a couple.

“Give me a break. I don’t think there can be too much influence for people, for democracy,” said Bradley. “These are individuals of public interest. You want to have people like that around public officials.”