A special prosecutor found US President Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after his term as vice-president and in the Senate. Despite these findings the special prosecutor, Robert Hur, recommended no charges should be laid in a 388-page report released by the Justice Department Thursday.Hur cited fears if Biden, 81, went to trial, 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.”Plus, Hur said there was a longstanding precedent of not indicting sitting presidents. Biden held the classified documents, which should have been returned at the end of his term, without proper safeguards, at his personal residence in Wilmington, DE and his pre-presidency office in DC provided by the University of Pennsylvania, per New York Post. Hur found classified records secretly retained by Biden when he was VP, including documents on military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and handwritten notes surrounding national security and foreign policy issues, which “implicates sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”The special counsel said Biden held onto the classified information “to document his legacy, to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber,” and to write memoirs (published in 2007, 2017).The report confirmed “in a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in February 2017, about a month after he left office, Mr. Biden said … that he had ‘just found all the classified stuff downstairs.'"“At least three times Mr. Biden read from classified entries aloud to his ghostwriter nearly verbatim,” Hur wrote. .“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice-president, forgetting on his first day of the interview when his term ended,” the report states, noting Biden said, “if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?”On the second day of his interview, Biden forgot when his term as VP began. “In 2009, am I still Vice President?” he asked, as documented in the report. Biden was vice-president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, and represented Delaware in the US Senate from 1973 to 2009.“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” Hur recorded in the report.“And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” Hur wrote. “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."Biden said he was "pleased" in a statement released after the report came out Thursday afternoon. “I was pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach, that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed," Biden said. "This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970s when I was a young Senator," the president continued. "I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks and sought no delays."Biden said he was "so determined to give the Special Counsel what they needed" he showed up for interviews on October 8 and 9, just after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and he was "in the middle of handling an international crisis.""I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed," Biden said. "Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America’s security. I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that.”.Communications director for Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign, Alex Pfeiffer released a statement on the reasoning behind keeping Biden from trial. "If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president," he said. "Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation.”
A special prosecutor found US President Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after his term as vice-president and in the Senate. Despite these findings the special prosecutor, Robert Hur, recommended no charges should be laid in a 388-page report released by the Justice Department Thursday.Hur cited fears if Biden, 81, went to trial, 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.”Plus, Hur said there was a longstanding precedent of not indicting sitting presidents. Biden held the classified documents, which should have been returned at the end of his term, without proper safeguards, at his personal residence in Wilmington, DE and his pre-presidency office in DC provided by the University of Pennsylvania, per New York Post. Hur found classified records secretly retained by Biden when he was VP, including documents on military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and handwritten notes surrounding national security and foreign policy issues, which “implicates sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”The special counsel said Biden held onto the classified information “to document his legacy, to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber,” and to write memoirs (published in 2007, 2017).The report confirmed “in a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in February 2017, about a month after he left office, Mr. Biden said … that he had ‘just found all the classified stuff downstairs.'"“At least three times Mr. Biden read from classified entries aloud to his ghostwriter nearly verbatim,” Hur wrote. .“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice-president, forgetting on his first day of the interview when his term ended,” the report states, noting Biden said, “if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?”On the second day of his interview, Biden forgot when his term as VP began. “In 2009, am I still Vice President?” he asked, as documented in the report. Biden was vice-president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, and represented Delaware in the US Senate from 1973 to 2009.“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” Hur recorded in the report.“And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” Hur wrote. “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."Biden said he was "pleased" in a statement released after the report came out Thursday afternoon. “I was pleased to see they reached the conclusion I believed all along they would reach, that there would be no charges brought in this case and the matter is now closed," Biden said. "This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970s when I was a young Senator," the president continued. "I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks and sought no delays."Biden said he was "so determined to give the Special Counsel what they needed" he showed up for interviews on October 8 and 9, just after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and he was "in the middle of handling an international crisis.""I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed," Biden said. "Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America’s security. I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that.”.Communications director for Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign, Alex Pfeiffer released a statement on the reasoning behind keeping Biden from trial. "If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president," he said. "Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation.”
