The White House is declining to say if it will release the transcripts of President Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur, sessions in which the prosecutor says the nation’s oldest president displayed a poor memory.
“I don’t have any announcement on releasing anything today, but it’s a reasonable question and there were some classified stuff and we have to work through all that,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said at the daily press briefing on Friday.
When pressed on whether or not the White House would release a redacted version to shield any potential classified information, Mr. Sams still hedged.
“We’ll take a look at that and make a determination,” he said.
The investigation focused on Mr. Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after he left the vice presidency in 2017, and Mr. Hur decided not to bring charges.
The release of the special counsel’s report Thursday raised new concerns about Mr. Biden’s age, mental capabilities and whether he is fit to fulfill the duties of his office.
Mr. Hur’s report characterizes Mr. Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and that he had “diminished faculties in advancing age.”
The report states that the president couldn’t remember when he was vice president or say within years when his son, Beau died.
Mr. Sams said he “can’t explain” why Mr. Hur described the president as a hapless and forgetful octogenarian. He said the president spoke with the Hur team the day after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel and may have been distracted by world events during the interview. But he bristled when reporters asked if the president should have postponed the interview.
“He should have thrown up roadblocks, is that what you’re saying?” he responded.
“What’s interesting about this, and this is oddly not in the report, is at the beginning of his interview the special counsel told the president, ’I understand that you’re dealing with a lot of things right now, and I’m going to be asking you questions about stuff from a long time ago,’” Mr. Sams said.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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