Special Counsel Hur Defends Attacks On Biden’s Memory Ahead of House Judiciary Showdown: I Didn’t ‘Disparage the President Unfairly’

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Special Counsel Robert Hur — who called President Joe Biden an “elderly man with a poor memory” in a blistering report last month — defended his attacks on the commander-in-chief.

Ahead of his showdown with the House Judiciary committee on Tuesday, the special counsel put out his opening statement (via Politico) — in which he argued that he knew his decision on whether or not to recommend criminal charges against the president over his handling of classified documents would draw scrutiny, and thus, needed meticulous explanation.

“I understood that my explanation about this case had to include rigorous, detailed, and thorough analysis. In other words, I needed to show my work,” Hur said. He added, “I knew that for my decision to be credible, I could not simply announce that I recommended no criminal charges and leave it at that. I needed to explain why.”

Hur went on to reference his assessment from the report that “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him” because of questions about his cognitive function.

“My task was to determine whether the President retained or disclosed national defense information ‘willfully’ — meaning, knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids,” Hur said. “I could not make that determination without assessing the President’s state of mind. For that reason, I had to consider the President’s memory and overall mental state,
and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial.”

He added that what he said about Biden’s memory was “necessary and accurate and fair.”