President Joe Biden on Thursday night strongly disputed new claims by Division of Justice particular counsel Robert Hur that he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a non-public citizen, and that he had exhibited poor reminiscence throughout an interview about that materials.
“My memory has not gotten worse,” Biden instructed reporters in a nationally televised handle on the White Home hours after Hur launched his report.
“My memory is fine.”
“I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden mentioned, in response to a reporter’s query that famous Hur’s reference to the president as aged.
“I’ve been president and I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation,” Biden mentioned.
However minutes later, Biden referred to Egypt’s president because the “president of Mexico.”
Biden was visibly offended at Hur’s declare that he couldn’t keep in mind the 12 months his son Beau Biden died, which the particular counsel cited amongst different examples of proof that Biden’s reminiscence “appeared hazy” throughout interviews with investigators.
The president mentioned that when he was requested a query about that 12 months Beau died “I thought to myself [it] wasn’t any of their damn business.”
“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden mentioned of Hur. “I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”
The primary authorized takeaway from Hur’s report was the particular counsel’s determination to not criminally cost Biden regardless of what Hur mentioned was the president’s willful retention of categorised paperwork and disclosure of some categorised materials to the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.
The fabric was retained in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, house, and at an workplace in Washington, D.C., after he ceased being vice chairman in January 2017.
Biden’s legal professionals have mentioned the fabric started being present in late 2022, months after former President Donald Trump was indicted on prices associated to retaining categorised paperwork at his Florida residence after he left the White Home, and to his obstructing efforts by officers to recuperate these paperwork.
Biden mentioned, “I’ve seen the headlines since the report was released about my willful retention of documents.”
“These assertions are not only misleading, they’re just plain wrong,” the president mentioned.
Biden forcefully denied sharing the fabric with the author.
And the president famous that Hur on web page 215 of the identical report wrote that “while it is natural to assume that Mr. Biden put the Afghanistan documents in the box on purpose and that he knew they were there, there is in fact a shortage of evidence on these points.”
“We do not know why, how, or by whom the documents were placed in the box,” the report had mentioned.
On web page 12 of the report, Biden famous, the particular counsel wrote, “For other recovered classified documents, after a thorough investigation the decision to decline criminal charges was straightforward.”
These categorised paperwork had been present in a Washington, D.C., workplace Biden had used after he ended his tenure as vice chairman in January 2017, and in collections of his U.S. Senate papers on the College of Delaware.
“The evidence suggests that Mr. Biden did not willfully retain these documents and that they could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake,” the report mentioned.
Regardless of that language, Hur in his report used proof of what he mentioned was Biden’s “poor memory” to additional justify his determination to not criminally cost the president.
“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,” the particular counsel mentioned in his report.
Hur’s repeated references to Biden’s reminiscence sparked a bitter backlash from the White Home and Biden’s supporters earlier than the president made his televised handle.
Biden’s legal professionals in a letter to Hur appended to the report wrote, “We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate.”
“The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events,” the legal professionals wrote.
Biden, in his feedback Thursday evening mentioned, “For any extraneous commentary, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” referring to Hur’s remarks about his reminiscence.
“It has no place in that report.”
Biden mentioned that he ought to have personally overseen the switch of containers from his vice presidential workplace in 2017, versus counting on employees to carry out that activity.
“I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” he mentioned.
“And so I wish I had paid more attention to how the documents were being moved to where I thought they’d be moved to, the [National] Archives,” he mentioned, referring to the authorized repository for governmental information.
Biden additionally contrasted his conduct to that of Trump’s.
“All the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to be locked,” Biden mentioned. “It was in my house. It was out, and like in [Trump’s private club] Mar-a-Lago in a public place … and none of it was highly classified.”
Biden mentioned he agreed with the choice by Legal professional Common Merrick Garland to nominate a particular counsel to analyze his retention of the paperwork. In doing so, Garland, who was appointed by Biden to steer the Division of Justice, sought to keep away from an look of battle that might come up from having the division itself conduct the probe.
Hur beforehand was U.S. Legal professional for Maryland. He was appointed to that put up by Trump.
“I think a special counsel should have been appointed,” Biden mentioned.
“And the reason I think a special counsel should have been appointed is because I did not want to be in a position [where] they looked at Trump and weren’t going to look at me, just like they looked at [Trump’s] vice president” Mike Pence, who additionally was not criminally charged for retaining categorised paperwork after a DOJ investigation ended final June.
“And the fact is they [Hur] made a firm conclusion: I did not break the law, period,” Biden mentioned.