Special Prosecutor Robert Hur could not charge President Biden with any crimes related to his handling of classified documents, so he made his report an opinionated political work.
Special Counsel Robert Hur is a Trump nominee
Hur is a Republican Trump nominee, who appears to have gone out of his way to smear President Biden with characterizations such as:
– Based on our direct interactions and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury to convict him – now a former president in his eighties – of a serious crime that requires a willful mental state.
– Did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting the first day of the interview at the end of his term (“if it were 2013 – when did I stop being vice president?”), and forgetting the second day of the interview at the beginning of his mandate (“Am I still Vice President in 2009?”)
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– He did not remember, even after several years, when his son Beau died.
Unless the special prosecutor has recordings that will be released of President Biden having memory problems, his descriptions should be considered subjective characterizations.
Hur is not a doctor and has not evaluated Biden’s memory.
The White House disagrees with Hur’s characterizations
Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber said in a statement: “We disagree with a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments contained in the Special Counsel’s report. “However, the most important decision made by the special prosecutor – that no charges are warranted – is firmly based on the facts and evidence.”
The main point is that Hur found no intentional wrongdoing in Biden’s keeping of the classified documents. Since the documents were in his personal notebooks, Biden thought he was allowed to have them. Biden’s situation is the opposite of that of Donald Trump, who willfully and intentionally lied and refused to provide classified information to the US government.
There are elements of this report that seem very partisan and political. It’s almost as if Hur realized that Biden couldn’t be charged for the classified documents, so he decided to smear the president.
Biden will have ample opportunity to demonstrate that his memory is good, but the important point is that Trump remains the only former president or vice president accused of stealing classified documents.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association