President Biden presented himself to interviewers as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Special Counsel Robert Hur said in his report about his investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents.
Hur declined to pursue criminal charges against the sitting president and described how Joe Biden willfully possessed classified information covering important national security matters, the special counsel report details. The report provides an assessment of how investigators perceived Joe Biden’s mental faculties.
“We have also considered that, at trial, 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’s report reads. (RELATED: Confused Biden Says He’s Recently Spoken With Yet Another Dead European Leader)
COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA – NOVEMBER 30: Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden bites the finger of his wife Jill Biden as she introduces him during a campaign event on November 30, 2019 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Biden, who begins his eight-day bus tour across Iowa on Saturday, once lead the state in the polls but now trails presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren with just under 3 months until the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses. (Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images)
“Based on our direct interactions with 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 that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Hur made the same assertions about Biden’s memory later in the report. The special counsel also described instances where the president forgot when he was vice president and the year his late son Beau Biden passed away.
Similarly, Joe Biden forgot significant details from the debate inside the Obama administration over the 2009 Afghanistan surge, which then-Vice President Biden notably opposed.
“I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks, and sought no delays. In fact, 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,” President Biden said in a statement addressing Hur’s report.
“I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed.”
Everyone should look at page 384 (I know it’s a lot to scroll down)
The inappropriate criticisms of the President’s memory are inaccurate, gratuitous, and wrong. We told the Special Counsel this. pic.twitter.com/Cr6VifBMnv
— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) February 8, 2024
White House spokesperson Ian Sams disputed Hur’s account of Joe Biden’s memory and cited a letter the Biden administration sent his office contesting the assertions about the president’s memory.
“The inappropriate criticisms of the President’s memory are inaccurate, gratuitous, and wrong. We told the Special Counsel this,” Sams said on X.
President Biden is the oldest commander-in-chief in American history at age 81. His numerous gaffes and mistakes since entering the White House have generated considerable scrutiny and widespread concern from the public about his age.