Ex-DOJ Chief Spox Roasts Hur On MSNBC: Wasn’t First Or Second Choice — Smeared Biden For Career Advancement

Former Office of Public Affairs Director and Senior Advisor to the Attorney General Anthony Coley roasted former special counsel Robert Hur on MSNBC, saying he wasn’t a top choice and suggesting he smeared President Joe Biden for career advancement.

On Tuesday’s edition of MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports, Jansing played a portion of the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee hearing on the investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of sensitive documents in which Coley was referenced.

Coley — now an MSNBC analyst — slammed Hur for his anti-Biden commentary and said DOJ should have chosen someone who doesn’t have “his eye on a on a job in a potential future Republican administration”:

CHRIS JANSING: Anthony, you actually got namechecked during just we’re sitting there. I just want to play that section of it. Let’s take a listen.

REP. KEVIN KILEY: It wasn’t just the president. Anthony Coley, former spokesman for Merrick Garland, has said that Democrats should focus their ire on her. The president’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, said that your report is a shabby piece of work and a shoddy work product. Do you agree with that characterization of your report?

ROBERT HUR: I disagree vehemently with that characterization of my report.

REP. KEVIN KILEY: I also disagree, I think it’s a very well-written, well-considered, and comprehensive. Do you think it’s appropriate for the administration to be attacking the work of a special counsel that it appointed itself?

ROBERT HUR: Congressman, I’m not going to comment on the propriety of the administration’s reaction to my report. What I can tell you is that I stand by the report and the work that went into it.

CHRIS JANSING: I’m going to give you a chance now. Were you appropriately and fully represented there? And what did you think?

ANTHONY COLEY: Yeah. So a couple of things.

Number one, my quote was with regard to everyone who anyone who has respect for the Justice Department. And the fact of the matter is, this colorful commentary that Robert Hur used were not consistent with the best traditions of the Justice Department, and the fact that he used them tells me that he didn’t have the best judgment.

And I hate to say it, but it’s clear to me now, in retrospect, Chris, that Robert Hur just wasn’t the best choice for Merrick Garland to make, to be the special counsel. He–

CHRIS JANSING: Do we know if he was the first choice?

ANTHONY COLEY: He wasn’t. He wasn’t the first choice or, quite frankly, the second choice. So there are a lot of people who passed, before this came to Hur.

And the fact of the matter here is that, Hur was hired to just call balls and strikes as they are, to be apolitical. But by using this commentary, he colored outside the lines, and that was that was–

CHRIS JANSING: Talking specifically about Biden.

ANTHONY COLEY: About Biden, absolutely–

CHRIS JANSING: About his age, his presentation–

ANTHONY COLEY: And what Garland should have done, in retrospect, is hire someone who was at the end of a distinguished legal career, someone, who was not 50, 51 years old, who was mid-career like Robert Hur and has his eye on a on a job in a potential future Republican administration.

CHRIS JANSING: Which he was asked about but said he wasn’t going to to comment on the possibility of that.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports.