Legal experts are blasting the “political” remarks included in Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report that concludes his investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of about 20 classified documents from his time as Vice President. As expected, the Special Counsel found no cause to file charges.
Hur was appointed to be Special Counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland, after being appointed by then-President Donald Trump as a U.S. Attorney.
Included in the report was personal commentary which some experts decried as political, and others said had no place being injected into Hur’s findings.
As The Washington Post described it, Hur’s “report said a jury would find Biden to be a sympathetic figure and ‘a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ Prosecutors also suggested it might not have struck Biden as noteworthy that he was in possession of classified documents so soon after his term as vice president had ended.”
“Hur’s report said 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.'”
Fox News was quick to jump on those remarks and turn them into a meme.
Professor of law Andrew Weissmann, a frequent MSNBC legal analyst who spent decades at DOJ, including working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller slammed Hur: “Of course, no crime was committed by Biden, but as anticipated, Hur takes the opportunity to make a gratuitous political swipe at Biden. Not Hur’s role; and frankly I don’t give a darn what his opinion is.”
Noted national security attorney Bradley Moss remarked, “If I were an elected official right now I might consider subpoenaing Robert Hur to testify about this report. Every time he ever says ‘I do not recall’ I would ask him if it is safe to say he is a well meaning but elderly old man with a poor memory.”
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“What Robert Hur did in his report with these irrelevant and extraneous remarks is the same thing DOJ used as the basis to fire James Comey in 2017. Seven years later, they did it again. Seriously. Unreal,” Moss continued, and added: “Trump can’t remember who the Speaker of the House was three years ago on J6, and thought his wife was Carroll in a photo.”
Another national security attorney, Mark Zaid, had criticism for both Hur and Biden.
“Not impressed w/Special Counsel Report. So much unnecessary commentary that will be politically seized upon. Also very unimpressed w/Biden’s mishandling of #classifiedinformation. Sloppy. Correct final decision though as matter of practice, policy & law,” he wrote.
“Facts are not optically favorable for Biden but still completely distinct from Trump,” Zaid went on to say. “I see Biden’s type of mishandling classified info all the time from former senior Govt officials – GOP & DEM – especially writing memoirs. All Trump had to do was return docs timely. Period.”
The White House, which had the opportunity to request redactions, chose not to.
But President Biden’s attorneys sent Hur a letter, The Guardian reports, stating:
“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. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report, particularly one that in the first paragraph announces that no criminal charges are ‘warranted’ and that ‘the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt.’”
“Not only do you treat the President differently from other witnesses when discussing his limited recall of certain years-ago events, but you also do so on occasions in prejudicial and inflammatory terms. You refer to President Biden’s memory on at least nine occasions – a number that is itself gratuitous.”
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license