WASHINGTON (CN) — The special counsel at the center of a federal probe into President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents told lawmakers Tuesday that he stood by his controversial assessment of the president’s age and mental faculties.
It was a partisan slugfest in the House Committee on Oversight as special counsel Robert Hur testified about his February report, which recommended no criminal charges against Biden despite concluding that the president had on some occasions “willfully” held onto classified documents from his time as vice president.
The special counsel asserted at the time that the president would be unlikely to be convicted by a jury in the event he ever went to trial, writing that he 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.”
Hur pointed to several examples where he said the president needed to be reminded of important dates, such as when he served as vice president and the year of his son Beau’s death.
Democrats and the White House have long bristled at this characterization of Biden’s cognitive abilities — and lawmakers got a chance Tuesday to rake Hur over the coals, demanding the special counsel answer for what they framed as an obvious political hack job.
Georgia Representative Hank Johnson argued that Hur used his report to “trash and smear President Biden.”
“You knew that would play into Republicans’ narrative that President Biden is unfit for office because he is senile,” Johnson said. “That is why they are having you here today.”
California Representative Adam Schiff piled on, contending that the special counsel chose to make a sweeping generalization about Biden’s mental faculties — rather than a case-by-case analysis of his recollection of certain information — because he knew such information would become public.
“You decided to go further and make a generalized statement about his memory,” Schiff told Hur. “You can’t tell me that you’re so naïve as not to think that your words would create a political firestorm. You understood that they would be manipulated.”
Both Schiff and Johnson suggested that the special counsel had taken steps to impugn Biden’s mental state in an effort to support former President Donald Trump’s reelection and guarantee himself a position in his new administration — a prospect that Hur laughed off.
“I have no such aspirations,” said the special counsel, who previously served as a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney. He assured lawmakers that partisan politics played no role in his investigation.
Hur further argued that omitting statements about Biden’s mental faculties would have made for an “incomplete and improper” report and that the decision to make his findings public rested solely in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The special counsel defended his comments, saying that he had a responsibility to “show my work” and explain why he had not recommended charges against the president.
“My task was to determine whether the president retained or disclosed classified information willingly,” Hur said, adding that he would not be able to make that determination without assessing Biden’s faculties.
Hur also contended that “the president himself put his memory squarely at issue,” pointing to examples where Biden exhibited memory lapses — such as his recollection of classified documents he shared with a ghostwriter.
“I did not sanitize information, nor did I disparage the president unfairly,” Hur said. “I called it like I saw it.”
Republicans on the Oversight Committee, meanwhile, were equally critical of Hur’s report, albeit for different reasons. Seeking to draw parallels between the special counsel’s investigation and a separate Justice Department inquiry into Trump’s own handling of classified documents, GOP lawmakers argued that Hur’s assessment of Biden’s mental state established a double standard.
Pointing to inconsistencies in the president’s testimony about information he provided to the ghostwriter, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz suggested that the special counsel had created a “senile cooperator theory.”
Under that precedent, the Republican lawmaker argued, someone accused of retaining classified documents could claim innocence based on the possibility that “the elevator’s not going to the top floor.”
Hur rejected that contention. The special counsel’s report pointed out that Biden had largely cooperated with the Justice Department’s efforts to reclaim classified documents and that he had consented to an interview and a search of his home. The report similarly notes that Trump has resisted his own probe.
Gaetz and other Republicans also took issue with Hur’s decision not to charge Biden’s ghostwriter, who the report said had deleted some files the president shared with him after Hur was appointed as special counsel. Lawmakers framed this activity as an attempt to conceal evidence.
Hur, however, was not willing to make that assertion, arguing that he had not pursued charges for the ghostwriter in part because he had retained transcripts of his conversations with Biden in which the classified documents in question were mentioned.
Democrats assailed their colleagues’ portrayal of Biden’s handling of classified documents. Responding to assertions that the president was senile, Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen called those comments “shameful.”
Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin framed the whole hearing as a distraction from threats to democracy posed by Trump, who he noted was hosting right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at his Florida resort.
“While we play pin the tail on the donkey,” said Raskin, “Donald Trump entertains authoritarian hustler Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago. It’s about trying to pull the wool over the eyes of America.”
Biden himself has pushed back on Hur’s report. During a February news conference held just hours after the special counsel released his findings, the president blasted Hur’s suggestion that he could not remember the date of his son’s death.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden said at the time. “I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”
On Tuesday morning, the Justice Department released the full transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden, which paints a more complicated picture.
Biden told Hur that his son had died “May 30” but did not immediately specify a date. A White House attorney jumped in to remind him that Beau had died in 2015.
“Was it 2015, he had died?” Biden said.
Biden, 81, has long faced questions from both Democrats and Republicans about whether he is too old to run for reelection in November — those concerns were at least partly assuaged by his strong State of the Union delivery last week.
Trump, Biden’s de facto challenger for the White House, will turn 78 in June; his age and mental faculties have already come under similar scrutiny.
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