An “elderly” President Joe Biden will not face charges for knowingly taking classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017, a prosecutor said on Thursday, opening a new tab, drawing a swift rebuke from the president as he seeks reelection.
Special Counsel Robert Hur said in a report that he opted against bringing criminal charges following a 15-month investigation because Biden cooperated and would be difficult to convict, describing him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
In a furious refutation, Biden claimed that his “memory was fine.” Overflowing with emotion, he blasted the lawyer’s claim that he had forgotten about the death of his son Beau during remarks at the White House, calling the charge that he had purposefully withheld the sensitive data “just plain wrong.”
Hur’s finding opens a new tab that guarantees that he won’t have to risk going to jail for mishandling private government papers, unlike Donald Trump, his anticipated adversary for the presidency in 2024.
However, it will make 81-year-old Joe Biden even more embarrassing as he attempts to persuade voters to give him another four-year term as the oldest president of the United States.
Hur as the head of Bidens Investigation
Hur was appointed head of the Biden investigation by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2023.
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
Hur was the top federal prosecutor in Maryland during the Trump administration.
But it will make 81-year-old Joe even more awkward when he tries to convince Americans to elect him to a fourth, four-year term as the nation’s oldest president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland named Hur as the lead investigator for the Biden case in January 2023. “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur said.
During the Trump administration, Hur served as Maryland’s chief federal prosecutor.
But it will make 81-year-old Joe even more awkward when he tries to convince Americans to elect him to a fourth, four-year term as the nation’s oldest president.
What are Memory issues?
Hur said that during Biden’s interview with members of his prosecution team, his recollection was “severely limited”. Hur claimed that Biden forgot the start and finish years of his vice presidential tenure under President Barack Obama, as well as the year his son Beau passed away.
Biden became upset that his son was included in the special counsel’s report.
According to Biden’s attorneys, memory gaps are common when someone is attempting to recall past occurrences. “Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report,”
“IMPROVEABLE COMMENTS”
Richard Sauber, the White House attorney, said that Hur’s report included “several inaccurate and inappropriate comments.”
Hur discovered that Biden carried handwritten notes from intelligence briefings and national security discussions, as well as a 2009 message to then-President Obama objecting to a proposed military increase in Afghanistan.
In February 2017, a month after stepping down as the vice president, confided in his ghostwriter that he had “just found all the classified stuff” downstairs in a house he was renting in Virginia a reference to records of the American war in Afghanistan.
According to Hur’s investigation, Biden recounted discussions in the White House Situation Room to his ghostwriter at least three times while reading aloud from confidential notebook entries.
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