Biden Lashed Out at Special Counsel for Asking About His Late Son, But He Was the One Who Brought Him Up: Report
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
NBC News is reporting that President Joe Biden was the one to bring up his late son Beau Biden’s death during an interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur.
After Hur’s bombshell report on an investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified materials dropped last Thursday, Biden held a press conference to address concerns over his cognitive abilities raised by the report.
According to Hur, Biden “did not remember when he was vice president” and “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
At the press conference, Biden was particularly incensed by the mention of his son in the report.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” asked the indignant president. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
However, as NBC News now reports, “Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.”
The report goes on to explain those sources’ understanding of what happened:
Biden raised his son’s death after being asked about his workflow at a Virginia rental home from 2016 to 2018, the sources said, when a ghost writer was helping him write a memoir about losing Beau to brain cancer in 2015. Investigators had a 2017 recording showing that Biden had told the ghost writer he had found “classified stuff” in that home, the report says.
Biden began trying to recall that period by discussing what else was happening in his life, and it was at that point in the interview that he appeared confused about when Beau had died, the sources said. Biden got the date—May 30—correct, but not the year.
Hur declined to prosecute Biden despite finding that he improperly held onto classified materials and disclosed classified information to others, citing Biden’s lack of criminal intent, cooperation with the investigation, and his memory issues.
