This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Former special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Joe Biden for taking – and keeping – classified government documents when he was a private citizen after his vice presidency ended – told Congress Tuesday his recommendation against charging Biden because of his diminished mental capacity was fair.
A new report also revealed that Biden did, in fact, have an explanation for how classified documents came to be stashed on the floor of his unsecured garage at his home.
"There was stuff one day," Biden claimed. "I came home and all of it was on the garage floor."
Hur's recommendation against charging Biden for his apparent violations of federal law by taking and keeping government secrets from his days as a senator and vice president for Barack Obama, keeping them even as a private citizen, already has been used by President Donald Trump, who was charged for similar circumstances.
His lawyers have pointed out that similar situations resulted in vastly different prosecutorial decisions, which suggests the Trump case is being used to target him with a selective prosecution.
In Hur's opening statement to a congressional committee investigating Biden for possible impeachment, he confirmed, "We identified evidence that the president willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. This evidence included an audio-recorded conversation during which Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter that he had 'just found all the classified stuff downstairs.'"
He confirmed other recorded conversations when Biden "read classified information aloud to his ghostwriter."
But he suggested the evidence identified did not rise "to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
He said Biden himself raised the issue of his memory and mental capacity.
"There has been a lot of attention paid to language in the report about the president’s memory, so let me say a few words about that. 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. 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. These are the types of issues prosecutors analyze every day. And because these issues were important to my ultimate decision, I had to include a discussion of them in my report."
He explained, "The evidence and the president himself put his memory squarely at issue. We interviewed the president and asked him about his recorded statement, 'I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.' He told us that he didn’t remember saying that to his ghostwriter. He also said he didn’t remember finding any classified material in his home after his vice presidency. And he didn’t remember anything about how classified documents about Afghanistan made their way into his garage."
At the same time as Hur's testimony, a report from Just the News cited portions of transcripts of Biden's claims during the interview with Hur, who concluded, "Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Biden is 81.
That transcript revealed he had "memory lapses," but admitted retaining papers from his years in office, saying he couldn't keep track of everything, the report said.
The report said, "The transcript shows Biden failing to recall or being able to answer specific questions at least 100 times … In one line of questioning about President Biden’s time after he left the vice presidency in early 2017, he struggled to remember the year of important events, like Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and the death of his son, Beau Biden, who died after a battle with brain cancer in 2015."
Just the News reported the transcript contradicts claims from Biden after the report was released. "The president was publicly indignant and criticized Hur for allegedly raising the topic" of his son's death.
Biden claimed to reporters, "How in the hell dare he raise that," Biden said to reporters, speaking about Hur. "Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business."
But the truth is that Biden first mentioned his son's death.
Biden also claimed Trump was elected in 2017. It was 2016.
