Special Counsel: Biden 'Willfully Disclosed Classified Materials' But Should Not Be Charged As He's An 'Elderly Man'

Hur would decline to press charges against Biden for a number of reasons:

A jury would not likely convict.

Biden is too old to prosecute.

A jury could believe he did not willfully retain the docs.

A jury would see Biden "as an elderly man with a poor memory." pic.twitter.com/4WrcpaVVmm

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 8, 2024

Special Counsel Robert Hur detailed in a report released on Thursday that President Joe Biden did take classified documents home with him, but that he should not face criminal charges over the matter.

"We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter. 1 We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president. 2 Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen," read the report's executive summary of its probe into Biden.

[...] Hur stated that if Biden were charged, the president could present to a jury "as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

[...] Hur's report describes Biden's memory in damning terms, at one point stating that it "appeared to have significant limitations." The report recounts a recorded 2017 conversation with Mark Zwonitzer – who helped Biden write two memoirs – in unflattering terms:

Mr. Biden's recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.

In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. 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.