When word got out in November that Special Counsel Robert Hur wasn’t expected to recommend charges for Joe Biden over the mishandling of classified documents, there was justifiable outrage from the right about a two-tiered justice system that allowed for Biden’s administration’s to charge Donald Trump with mishandling classified documents with Joe Biden not facing any charges at all.
And yet, Hur’s report, released on Thursday, wound up being more damaging than perhaps anyone expected. In fact, it’s a huge political gift to Trump. Not only does it reinforce Trump’s argument of a two-tiered justice system, but it says the quiet part out loud about one of Biden’s biggest liabilities as he attempts to make the case to voters he deserves four more years in office.
In short, the report makes it clear that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” and that such actions "present serious risks to national security.” But it also assessed Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and that it would be difficult to convince a jury he is guilty of a serious felony because to commit such a crime “requires a mental state of willfulness.” Further, the report recounts how he couldn’t remember when he was vice president and didn’t even remember when his son Beau died.
Related: Special Counsel Finds Biden Is Too Damn Old to Be Charged in Classified Docs Scandal
That didn’t stop Joe Biden from essentially insisting the report exonerated him. It certainly did not, but that’s what he wants the public to believe. But, as constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley noted, Biden has nothing to boast about regarding this report.
"President Biden just took a victory lap in not being criminally charged despite a finding that he 'willfully retained' classified material and showed substantial decline in his mental faculties,” he said in a post on X/Twitter. “[Biden] is effectively pumping his chest and bragging 'I'm sympathetically diminished.' It makes for a curious campaign slogan."
Republicans on Capitol Hill also responded to the report.
"The Special Counsel’s finding that President Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials’ and engaged in practices that ‘present serious risks to national security’ is deeply disturbing. Not only does it demonstrate the President’s recklessness, but exposes a two-tiered system of justice that is indicting one President with politically motivated charges while carrying water for another amid similar allegations,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a joint statement with Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefaink (R-N.Y.)
"Among the most disturbing parts of this report is the Special Counsel’s justification for not recommending charges: namely that the President’s memory had such ‘significant limitations’ that he could not convince a jury that the President held a ‘mental state of willfulness’ that a serious felony requires,” the statement continued. "A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office."
This is what everyone is thinking, and even the liberal media that has been protecting him can’t ignore the damning information in this report. The New York Times... CNN --- they can’t ignore it.
"The description offered by Special Counsel Hur regarding President Biden’s condition will be seen, around the world, as unnerving,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement on X/Twitter. "I have known President Biden for decades, traveled the world with him and consider him a friend. The Special Counsel’s assessment of President Biden’s physical and mental condition is something the American people will have to consider this Fall."
