Biden lawyer calls special counsel Hur’s report ‘off the rails’
Special counsel Robert Hur released report on Thursday about investigation into alleged mishandling of classified Obama-era materials at two private locations
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Your support makes all the difference.Joe Biden’s lawyer called special counsel Robert Hur’s report commenting in part on the president’s age and health “off the rails” and “shabby” on Sunday.
An angry and animated Joe Biden previously hit back at the Republican prosecutor’s claim that his memory is faulty during a last-minute and at-times chaotic press conference on Thursday.
The president hit out at parts of the report released earlier in the day by Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur into his handling of classified documents and became infuriated at a suggestion that he did not remember the year his late son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer.
On Friday, Kamala Harris joined the White House fight back, slamming the report as “politically motivated”, and saying she found details in it “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate”.
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”.
Mr Hur’s report concluded that Mr Biden will not face charges for “willfully” holding onto documents after he left office as Barack Obama’s vice president in January 2017.
The report, which was delivered to Congress after many months of investigation and preparation, recommended no criminal charges for the incumbent president, even were he not protected by immunity from prosecution due to his current stature.
However, 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.
It stated that the materials included files on military policy in Afghanistan and handwritten notes on national security, also suggesting that Mr Biden would look like an “elderly man with a poor memory” to a jury if he were to be hit with criminal charges.
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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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Kamala Harris gives fiery defence of Biden and slams ‘integrity’ of special counsel
Vice president hits out at Special Counsel Robert Hur after the Republican prosecutor attacked Mr Biden’s memory
Failed Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy claims Dems will run Michelle Obama instead of Joe Biden in November
Vivek Ramaswamy, a right-wing businessman who launched a doomed presidential primary and has since become a mainstay on conservative media, has claimed that Democrats will run Michelle Obama instead of Joe Biden in November.
Mr Ramaswamy made the claims during a Fox News appaearance.
According to Mr Ramaswamy, Democrats want to use a report issued by special counsel Robert Hur concerning Mr Biden’s possession of classified government documents following his vice presidency as a way to justify the replacement.
Mr Hur’s report claims charges won’t be brought against Mr Biden in part because he will be viewed as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” by a jury.
Mr Ramaswamy said the natural backup pick for replacing Mr Biden is Vice President Kamala Harris, but he claims due to her poor primary performance in 2020 they instead will opt for Ms Obama.
“If race and gender are your basis for selecting someone for a job, and the identity of your party is tied to that temple of identity politics, then they will risk looking hypocritical if they sideline her after they sideline Biden. And I do think Michelle Obama offers them a convenient path out of that problem, somebody who checks the boxes that they need to have checked per their own ideology, while also selecting an alternative to Biden that they may view as more palatable in a general election . . . it’s looking increasingly like it’s not going to be Biden as the nominee. And I think that it should not be shocking to see someone like Michelle Obama take the role of the nomination,” he said.
There is no evidence that Democrats are planning on running anyone other than Mr Biden in November.
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