Special Counsel Robert Hur spent 15 months investigating now-President Biden’s unlawful retention of classified documents from his years in the Senate and as vice president and concluded, though Biden “willfully” kept the docs (some for decades), he shouldn’t be prosecuted because a jury was unlikely to convict a guy who comes off as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Democrats spent much of Tuesday’s House Judiciary hearing with Hur pushing him to call this an “exoneration” of the prez.
Oh, and bashing him for honestly saying how Biden came off in their interviews.
Plus, reminding everyone: Orange man bad.
Jerry Nadler outright stated Hur’s report “represents the complete and total exoneration” of Biden (it’s not) and made it “clear that he didn’t lie” (it didn’t).
Jamie Raskin raged about Trump and how “the tyrants and dictators of the world are on the march” — seriously.
Steve Cohen complained about Republicans’ talking about Biden’s mental state: “That’s disrespectful of senior people with any kind of memory disability.”
Hank Johnson insisted Hur is a member of the Federalist Society (he’s not) who used “your report to trash and smear President Biden.”
“You did disparage the president,” whined Adam Schiff.
Eric Swalwell wanted him to promise not to take a Trump administration job.
Pramila Jayapal wasted most of her time pushing for Hur to say “exoneration.”
Cori Bush took it back to “former white supremacist-in-chief, Donald Trump.”
Look: Hur is a straight shooter straight out of central casting.
He gave Biden a way out of any future prosecution, though he made it clear the evidence could warrant a recommendation to prosecute.
(He clearly doubted it would serve the public interest to further demean the presidency; the “jury won’t convict” gambit also preserved for some shred of respect for the office.)
But rather than be grateful for avoiding a high-profile embarrassment in an election year, Democrats can’t stop themselves from venting righteous indignation — which has only succeeded in hurting the president’s image further.
He took great care to say in his report everything he was going to say; all the Dems’ badgering did was force him to repeat himself — which only spelled out the worst for Biden.
That is: Biden knew perfectly well what the law is on classified docs; it didn’t stop him from taking stuff home back in his Senate days (when he had zero right), nor from knowingly holding on to more docs after he left office as veep: He’s even on tape in 2017 admitting he had classified stuff.
And Hur never said Biden is senile.
No: He flagged how confused-seeming the prez got under the prosecutor’s questioning — indeed, the transcript proves Biden is the one who suddenly brings up son Beau’s death when the conversation gets specific, getting upset in what a cynic might see as an excuse for changing the subject.
Since Biden couldn’t be put on trial for any classified-doc crimes until after leaving the Oval Office, Hur plainly expects he’d play the same game on the stand, and get away with it.
Yes, the president has memory issues (he shows it all the time), but the reason Hur let him off the hook is that he’s a clever scoundrel.
The Democrats were just lucky Tuesday they didn’t accidentally corner him into saying so outright.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
