Special counsel Robert Hur released a scathing report Thursday saying President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified military and national security documents, but he did not recommend criminal charges.
Mr. Hur said Mr. Biden came across as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and would be a sympathetic figure to a jury.
The determination that the president broke the law but was too “hazy” and “elderly” to prosecute forced Mr. Biden to hastily arrange a White House press conference to defend himself before the nation.
Facing a barrage of questions from the usually friendly Washington press corps, Mr. Biden insisted that there was nothing wrong with his mental faculties.
“I know what the hell I’m doing. I’m the president and I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation,” snapped Mr. Biden.
“My memory is fine. Take a look at what I’ve done since I’ve become president. None of the things I could pass any of the things I got passed. How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on,” he said.
Mr. Biden took particular umbrage to Mr. Hur’s claim that he couldn’t remember “within a few years” when his son, Beau died. “Frankly, that’s the question, I thought to myself, that’s none of their damn business.”
But when asked about the status of negotiations for the release of Israeli and American hostages held by the terrorist organization Hamas, Mr. Biden appeared to confuse the identity of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, calling him the president of Mexico.
“You know, initially the president of Mexico, El-Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate.”
In the report, Mr. Hur said the president had held on to records from his time as vice president in the Obama White House. He said the documents detailed U.S. foreign policy and military efforts in Afghanistan. Mr. Biden also held on to records related to national security and foreign policy that the special counsel said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
Still, Mr. Hur said he could not charge Mr. Biden because his “memory was significantly limited” in the interviews conducted last year and in interviews with the president’s ghostwriter.
As a result, Mr. Hur said, “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him … of a serious felony.” He said the jury would have to recognize that the crime requires “a mental state of willfulness.”
“We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” the report said. “We would reach the same conclusion even if the Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.”
In a statement, Mr. Biden said he was pleased that the special counsel’s report did not recommend criminal charges.
He defended the criticism of his memory by saying the special counsel interviews were five hours long over two days right after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
“I was so determined to give the special counsel what they needed that I went forward with five hours of in-person interviews over two days on October 8th and 9th of last year, even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis,” Mr. Biden said.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, ripped the Hur report as an example of a “two-tiered system of justice.” Mr. Trump is facing roughly 40 criminal charges for his handling of classified documents that were moved from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence during the final days of his presidency.
“The Biden Documents Case is 100 times different and more severe than mine. I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal - He had 50 years of documents, 50 times more than I had, and ‘WILLFULLY RETAINED’ them,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
Mr. Trump reiterated his claim that the Presidential Records Act shields him from prosecution.
House Republicans, who have launched an investigation into Mr. Biden’s retention of classified documents, promised to march forward undeterred by the Hur report.
“Important questions remain about the extent of Joe Biden retaining sensitive materials related to specific countries involving his family’s influence peddling schemes that brought in millions for the Bidens. While the Justice Department has closed its investigation, the Oversight Committee’s investigation continues. We will continue to provide the transparency and accountability owed to the American people,” said House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican.
Mr. Hur’s depiction of Mr. Biden as a bumbling old man was reminiscent of the excuses FBI Director James B. Comey gave in 2016 for not charging Hillary Clinton with mishandling classified documents. At the time, Mrs. Clinton was facing Mr. Trump in the presidential race. Mr. Comey said she wasn’t “sophisticated enough” to understand her dangerous use of email to transmit highly classified documents.
Mr. Hur did not bring criminal charges because Mr. Biden was too forgetful and hapless for a jury to convict him.
Mr. Hur’s 345-page report details several instances in which Mr. Biden stumbled to remember critical details during his interview with investigators.
According to the report, Mr. Biden asked investigators when he stopped being vice president and when his term began as vice president. He also couldn’t remember the year his son Beau died or when describing a debate about the war in Afghanistan during his time in the Obama administration.
The report said Mr. Biden asked investigators, “When did I stop being vice president?” He later asked them whether he was vice president in 2009, his first year under President Obama.
Mr. Hur detailed an incident in which Mr. Biden had a “hazy” memory about a debate over a military operation in Afghanistan during the Obama administration. He mistakenly told investigators that he “had a real difference” of opinion with a top U.S. general when, in fact, the general was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in a memo.
White House counsel Richard Sauber and Mr. Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, criticized the comments about the president’s memory in statements. The two wrote a letter to Mr. Hur on Monday saying that detailing the president’s memory issues was “entirely superfluous.”
In a follow-up statement after the report was released, Mr. Bauer accused the special counsel of “investigative excess” and using “prejudicial language” to describe Mr. Biden’s lack of recall.
Mr. Sauber said the comments about Mr. Biden’s memory were “inaccurate and inappropriate.”
“Nonetheless, the most important decision the special counsel made — that no charges are warranted — is firmly based on the facts and evidence,” he said.
According to the report, Mr. Biden had classified materials in his garage, offices and basement den at his Wilmington, Delaware, home. He kept “classified notebooks in unsecured and unauthorized spaces at his Virginia and Delaware homes” after leaving the vice presidency.
The materials included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about national security and foreign policy issues.
Some of the classified documents were labeled “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” a category reserved for particularly sensitive material. Among the materials was a 2009 memo he sent to Mr. Obama to persuade him not to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Other documents date to Mr. Biden’s time in the Senate, which began in 1973.
Damning photos were included in the report, including one showing three notebooks with classified materials stuffed inside cabinets below Mr. Biden’s printer and a television.
Another set of photos shows Mr. Biden’s garage, where documents containing classified information related to Afghanistan policy were found among “a significant volume of boxes, storage and clutter.”
The special counsel team conducted 173 interviews with 147 witnesses, including Mr. Biden, and collected millions of documents. Mr. Biden cooperated with investigators and consented to multiple searches of his property.
Mr. Hur characterizes Mr. Biden as hapless and forgetful while retaining classified information to help craft his 2017 memoir with a ghostwriter. The report said the book ultimately did not contain classified information.
The classified records were found inside Mr. Biden’s Washington office at a think tank on Nov. 2, 2022, but not disclosed to the public until January 2023, after the midterm elections.
A second batch of documents turned up inside the garage of Mr. Biden’s Wilmington home. Additional classified documents were found inside the president’s home, prompting Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Mr. Hur.
Mr. Hur was appointed weeks after Mr. Garland named Jack Smith to serve as special counsel to investigate Mr. Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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