Biden Is Reportedly Growing Frustrated with Merrick Garland: ‘This Has Been Building for a While’
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
President Joe Biden has become increasingly frustrated with Attorney General Merrick Garland on several fronts, Politico reported on Friday night.
On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur, whom Garland appointed to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as a senator and vice president, released a detailed report on the matter. The Republican attorney concluded that the president should not be criminally charged in part because a jury could easily find him “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur also said Biden struggled to remember “when he was vice president” and “when his son Beau died.”
A furious Biden responded by holding a press conference at the White House just hours later and insisted his memory is fine. He also railed against Hur’s inclusion of his late son, saying, “How in the hell dare he raise that?”
Politico reported that Biden and his advisers believe Hur went beyond his charge and that parts of his report were gratuitous and that Garland should have called on Hur to make edits:
Biden and his closest advisers believe Hur went well beyond his purview and was gratuitous and misleading in his descriptions, according to those two people, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. And they put part of the blame on Garland, who they say should have demanded edits to Hur’s report, including around the descriptions of Biden’s faltering memory.
Moreover, White House staffers have questioned Garland’s decision to appoint a special counsel in the case at all.
“This has been building for a while,” a source told Politico. “No one is happy.”
The president has also privately groused about the amount of time the Department of Justice has taken to prosecute his son Hunter Biden, who is facing a nine-count indictment that includes three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts. As Politico stated:
Last year, Biden privately denounced how long the probe into his son was taking, telling aides and outside allies that he believed the stress could send Hunter Biden spiraling back into addiction, according to the same two people. And the elder Biden, the people said, told those confidants that Garland should not have eventually empowered a special counsel to look into his son, believing that he again was caving to outside pressure.
And recently, Biden has complained that Garland was too slow to initiate an investigation into Donald Trump. The former president is facing federal charges in Florida and Washington, D.C. for retaining government material after leaving office and trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, respectively. Trump was indicted only after Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump in November 2022 after the ex-president announced his bid for the White House.
Politico reported:
In recent weeks, President Biden has grumbled to aides and advisers that had Garland moved sooner in his investigation into former President Donald Trump’s election interference, a trial may already be underway or even have concluded, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private matters. That trial still could take place before the election and much of the delay is owed not to Garland but to deliberate resistance put up by the former president and his team.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment.
