CV NEWS FEED // House lawmakers on Tuesday pressed Special Counsel Robert Hur over his decision to not charge President Joe Biden with a crime last month. During the hearing, Hur emphasized that he “did not exonerate” the president.
In a widely scrutinized report, Hur conceded that the president “willfully retained classified” documents at private locations, a crime. Hur nonetheless decided not to charge Biden, partly due to what the special counsel called Biden’s “significantly limited” memory.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OH, confronted Hur over his report during a committee’s hearing Tuesday morning.
“Robert Hur was appointed special counsel on January 12, 2023,” Jordan said in his opening statement. Controversial Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to the position.
“He had a fundamental question to address,” Jordan said. “Did Joe Biden unlawfully contain classified information?”
“The answer: Yes [Biden] did,” the Ohio Republican noted.
Jordan read from the first page of Hur’s report, where the special counsel wrote: “Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
Jordan went on to summarize:
Joe Biden kept classified information and Joe Biden failed to store classified information properly. Mr. Hur made these determinations after interviewing 147 witnesses [and examining] seven million documents including emails, text messages, photographs, videos, toll records, and other materials from both classified and unclassified sources.
>> HUR: BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED IN DOCS PROBE PARTLY DUE TO ‘SIGNIFICANTLY LIMITED’ MEMORY <<
“But there’s more,” Jordan added. “[Biden] also shared [information] with people … who weren’t allowed to see it.”
“Remember, this is information that only individuals with a security clearance are supposed to see,” he went on:
Mr. Hur told us in page 200 of his report that it’s the kind of information that “risk[s] serious damage to America’s national security.”
And what did Joe Biden have to say about all of this? What was his explanation?
On page 94 of Mr. Hur’s report, Joe Biden said he took his notebooks with him after his vice presidency because “They’re mine.”
“Joe Biden felt he was entitled,” Jordan commented. “You can almost hear it. You can feel the arrogance in the statement: ‘They’re mine.’”
The congressman continued:
But even with all that, Mr. Hur chose not to bring charges because “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury as he did in our interview of him, as a sympathetic well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
A forgetful old man who Mr. Hur said did not remember when he was vice president.
“Joe Biden broke the law,” Jordan emphasized. “But because he’s a forgetful old man who would appear sympathetic to a jury, Mr. Hur chose not to bring charges.”
Hur Responds
The special counsel told the House lawmakers: “There has been a lot of attention paid to language in the report about the president’s memory, so let me say a few words about that.”
“My task was to determine whether the president retained or disclosed national defense information … knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids,” Hur indicated. “I could not make that determination without assessing the president’s state of mind.”
“The evidence and the president himself put his memory squarely at issue,” Hur said:
We interviewed the president and asked him about his recorded statement: “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
[Biden] told us that he didn’t remember saying that to his ghostwriter. He also said that he didn’t remember finding any classified material in his home after his vice presidency. And he didn’t remember anything about how classified documents about Afghanistan made their way into his garage.
“My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president’s memory was necessary and accurate and fair,” Hur said. “I did not sanitize my explanation nor did I disparage the president unfairly.”
A ‘Glaring Double Standard’
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-CA, had harsh words for Hur and the rest of the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding their decision not to prosecute Biden.
“The foundation of our justice system is equal justice under law,” McClintock said. “[W]ithout it, the law is simply force, devoid of any moral authority.”
“I am desperately afraid that [in] this decision, the Department of Justice has now crossed a very bright line,” the congressman continued.
He went on to contrast Hur’s decision not to charge Biden with a crime with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into former President Donald Trump’s handling of documents which resulted in 37 felony charges.
“This is a glaring double standard, toxic to the law,” stressed McClintock.
>> ‘TWO-TIERED JUSTICE SYSTEM’: TRUMP, OTHERS REACT TO REPORTED BIDEN MEMORY LOSS <<
“The fact that the same thing is happening to a political opponent makes this unprecedented,” he noted, referring to Trump. “[Biden] had classified docs in his possession, told others, and then shared it. The mind boggles what ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ actually means.”
Hur: ‘I Did Not Exonerate’ Biden
Meanwhile, Hur fought back against a far-left Democrats’ claim that his special counsel report “exonerated” Biden.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, said: “So, this lengthy, expensive and independent investigation resulted in a complete exoneration of President Joe Biden.”
“For every document you discussed in your report you found insufficient evidence that the president violated any laws about possession or retention of classified materials,” she claimed.
Hur replied: “I need to go back and make sure that I take note of the word that you used: ‘exoneration.’”
Jayapal interrupted the special counsel. “Mr. Hur, I’m going to continue with my questions,” she repeatedly said.
As the Democrat talked over him, Hur said: “That’s not part of my task as a prosecutor.”
“The judgment … that I ultimately reached related to whether sufficient evidence existed such that the likely outcome [for Biden] would be a conviction,” Hur said as Jayapal continued to speak over him.
“You exonerated him,” she then said.
“I did not exonerate him,” he replied.
“Mr. Hur, it’s my time,” responded the congresswoman. “Thank you.”
Jayapal is the chairwoman of the left-wing Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). The CPC includes among its members a number of controversial members of Congress such as Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-MN, Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, and Cori Bush, D-MO.
Last summer, Jayapal was heavily criticized after calling the nation of Israel a “racist state.”
