In early February, special counsel Robert Hur delivered his report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents while out of office. While he did not find any wrongdoing, Hur made news by writing that Biden was an “elderly man” with a “faulty memory” — a troublesome claim for a president already facing questions about his age. On Tuesday, hours after the transcript of their conversation contradicted some of Hur’s claims, he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to discuss the report. Here are the most notable moments from the hearing.
Republican Tom Tiffany was not impressed with Hur’s credentials as an official in GOP administrations, stating that he could not effectively serve as special counsel because he is a member of the “pretorian guard” protecting the “elites.”
During her questioning, Pramila Jayapal stated that Biden had been exonerated because Hur decided not to charge him. While he did not recommend criminally charging Biden, Hur pushed back against Jayapal’s assessment, stating that “I did not exonerate him.”
Republican Victoria Spartz accused the Justice Department of a “double standard” in charging Donald Trump for withholding documents at Mar-a-Lago and deciding not to charge Biden in his documents case. Spartz, who is from the former Soviet Union, compared the situation to the country in which she was born.
Democrats are quick to point out Trump’s gaffes and the differences between his documents case and the Biden docs
Throughout the hearing, Democrats on the House Judiciary committee pointed to Donald Trump’s many errors in his speeches as a way to emphasize that Biden is not the only old candidate with a tendency to make mistakes.
More substantively, several Democrats have also noted the differences between the Hur special counsel report on Biden and the charges against Donald Trump. In that case, the former president refused to cooperate with the investigation and is accused of obstructing justice.
Democrat Eric Swalwell noted in the transcript of Hur’s interviews with Biden, Hur told the president that it seemed that he had a “photographic memory” of his time in the Senate. Swalwell then asked if that opinion was included in the report, to which Hur said no. Swalwell also asked Hur if he would accept a position in the Trump administration if Trump won. Hur did not answer in the affirmative or negative.
Democrat Hank Johnson used his time to highlight Hur’s status as a registered Republican with a long career working in GOP administrations dating back to George H. W. Bush. After establishing Hur’s Republican bonafides, Johnson accused the special counsel of trying to get Donald Trump reelected:
Through crosstalk, Hur said that “partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work.”
There weren’t a lot of sympathetic voices at the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Democrats questioned Hur over his decision to include his opinion of Biden’s mental acuity, which they see as beyond Hur’s scope as special counsel. Meanwhile, Republicans tore into Hur for failing to charge Biden despite evidence that Biden knew he had classified documents. (In a transcript from a conversation with his ghostwrite in 2017, Biden said he had found “classified stuff” to provide him.) They say that the decision not to charge Biden is a dangerous precedent for retaining classified documents.
In his opening statement, Hur stated that while classified documents were found at Biden’s home, he added that his team “did not have evidence that could prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” After explaining why Hur did not charge Biden for taking the documents, he said why his comments are the president’s mental state. “My task was to determine whether the president retained or disclosed national information willingly,” Hur said. “I could not make that determination without assessing the president’s state of mind.”
Hur defended his choice to offer his opinion on Biden’s age. “These are the types of issues that prosecutors analyze every day,” he said.
In the summary of the report released in February, Hur claimed that Biden forgot when his son Beau died. But in the transcript from their interview, Biden knew the exact day, as others in the room jumped in to provide the year:
Biden also joked about his age during the interview:
This post has been updated.
