Biden lawyer calls special counsel Hur’s report ‘off the rails’

Special Counsel Robert Hur revealed in his report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents that the president has a poor memory and at times could not recall when he was vice president or when his son, Beau Biden, died.

In his report, released on Thursday, Mr Hur declined to prosecute Mr Biden for his mishandling of classified documents – saying that though the president retained documents containing sensitive information, he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Mr Hur also included that if Mr Biden were to appear in front of a jury he would seem like a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

Ariana Baio has the story:

President Joe Biden will not face charges for “willfully” holding onto classified documents after he left office as vice president, according to the final report released by Special counsel Robert Hur.

On Thursday, Mr Hur released the findings from his investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified Obama-era materials, which were found at two locations tied to the president.

In the 388-page report, Mr Hur said that Mr Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”.

Read the special counsel’s report in full here:

A report on the Justice Department’s investigation into Joe Biden’s unauthorised retention of classified materials was made public on Thursday – and it was as troubling for the president and his public image as it was vindicating for those who argued he had committed no crimes.

The report was authored by Robert Hur, a former US attorney appointed by Donald Trump and later elevated to the rank of special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Delivered to Congress this week after many months of investigation and preparation, it recommended no criminal charges for the incumbent president, even were he not protected by immunity from prosecution due to his current stature.

It did, however, contain much that will concern many Americans and was overall far from complimentary of the incumbent president.

The investigators painted a picture of a senile president with severe memory issues whose innocence was less clear than his supporters would have hoped, while not necessarily coming across to a potential jury as malicious or criminal.

Let’s take a look at the key takeaways from Mr Hur’s report:

Eric Garcia writes:

President Joe Biden probably hoped that the 388-page report from special counsel would put a lingering question — the one of his handling of classified documents — to bed.

And indeed, while Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report said that Biden “willfully” held onto classified materials at his home in Delaware and the office of a think tank, it also said it would not recommend crimiminal charges for the president.

The good news ended there for the president. It should be noted that Attorney General Merrick Garland nominated Hur, a Republican whom Trump nominated to serve as the US Attorney for Maryland. Garland did so after Trump sought to use the entire department as his personal legal defense arm. It was supposed to be a show of impartiality toward the current president.

But nominating Hur might have given Republicans their most potent weapon yet. It forced a conversation on Biden’s age and whether it makes him fit to be the president for another term into the foreground. The report became the equivalent of a rubber hose beating: it may not be fatal, but it will bruise him up a bit.

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Democrats are rushing to defend President Joe Biden after he appeared to confuse Mexico with Egypt during a press conference called to refute claims about his poor memory.

Following the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Thursday – which claimed Mr Biden’s memory was “significantly limited” – Democratic lawmakers pointed to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s own gaffe, where he confused Iran with Israel last week.

Martha McHardy has the story:

Any parent who’s ever called one of their children by the other’s name — or even the family pet’s name — likely could empathize when President Joe Biden mixed up the names of French leaders Macron and Mitterrand.

The human brain has trouble pulling names out of stuffed memory banks on cue. But when are those and other verbal stumbles normal, and when might they be a sign of cognitive trouble?

“When I see somebody make a flub on TV, I’m really not all that concerned,” said well-known aging researcher S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago. “What science will tell you about flubs is that they’re perfectly normal, and they are exacerbated by stress for sure.”

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Andrew Feinberg, our White House correspondent, filed this report:

Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday came out swinging with a full-throated defence of President Joe Biden in the wake of an unflattering report on his conduct by a Republican special prosecutor.

Ms Harris was speaking in the Indian Treaty Room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at an event hosted by the White House’s gun violence prevention office when she addressed the matter of Mr Hur’s report, which critics have assailed as including gratuitous attacks on the president even as it announced that he will not face any criminal charges stemming from the discovery of classified documents at his Delaware home.

She said she has been “privileged and proud to serve as vice president of the United States” under Mr Biden, and said Mr Hur’s remarks on Mr Biden’s age and memory were “gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate”.

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