Tag: trial

Robert Hur, special counsel, has announced his decision not to charge former Vice President Joe Biden in relation to the mishandling of classified materials. Hur’s investigation found evidence indicating Biden “willfully retained” documents critical to national security after his vice presidency, while he was a private citizen.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report explains, but says evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The report takes particular aim at Biden’s cognitive abilities, which have recently been underscored by his claims to have discussed the events of January 6th, 2021, with long-dead French President Francois Mitterand.

Biden’s memory, says the special counsel report, “was significantly limited.” It added: “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… 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.”

“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”

The refusal to prosecute Biden due to his age and poor cognitive function flies in the face of the persistent establishment talking points that “no one is above the law.” Indeed, in this instance, the special counsel appears to make the case that because no jury would prosecute Biden despite his obvious guilt, the case must be dropped.

The report also details how Biden leveraged the sensitive government information for profit, using notebooks he should not have had for a book published in 2017: “After the vice presidency, Mr. Biden kept these 2 classified notebooks in unsecured and unauthorized spaces at his Virginia and Delaware homes and used some of the notebooks as reference material for his second memoir, Promise Me, Dad, which was published in 2017.”

A ghostwriter is also said to have “found” classified material in a rental unit in Virginia, “in a badly damaged box surrounded by household detritus.”

The special counsel report goes further into Biden’s mental incapacity, adding: “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. 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.”

READ IN FULL: