Documents show President Joe Biden‘s lawyers were frustrated with special counsel Robert Hur‘s findings and the tone of his report over the president’s handling of classified documents ahead of its release to the public.
A series of letters between Biden’s legal counsel and Justice Department officials occurred the day before Hur’s report was released last week, according to the Washington Post. In one communication, Hur explained his decision not to prosecute Biden for his keeping of classified documents after he left office as vice president despite stating the practices “present serious risks to national security.”
Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer and White House counsel Edward Siskel objected to Hur’s final draft of the report in a three-page letter on Feb. 7. The counsel believed the report “openly, obviously, and blatantly” violated Justice Department policy and practice and consensus about special counsel report restrictions.
The lawyers also argued that presidents “have done exactly the same thing” by retaining classified documents or information at home after they served their terms in office.
“So, to criticize President Biden for a practice that his predecessors openly engaged in, a practice that the Justice Department has in the past acknowledged and declined to investigate, a practice that is not charged conduct, exemplifies the reasons why a bipartisan consensus arose to change the prior report writing function,” they wrote.
Bauer and Siskel also objected to the “denigrating statements” Hur made about the president’s memory, calling them “uncalled for and unfounded.” The special counsel had described Biden as an “elderly man” with “poor memory” whom no jury could convict due to a lack of a “mental state of willfulness.”
“The Special Counsel can certainly and properly note that the President lacked memory of a specific fact or series of events,” they wrote, adding that Hur’s allegation about Biden’s memory failing more broadly “has no law enforcement purpose.”
Republicans have emphasized Hur’s descriptions of the president’s faulty memory as voters on both sides of the aisle continue to express their concern about whether Biden has the mental acuity to serve another term as president.
Hur will travel to Capitol Hill on March 12 for a public hearing with the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing will discuss Hur’s findings that Biden may have willfully and intentionally stored classified documents in unauthorized locations, as well as his decision not to charge the president.
The Justice Department has stood by Hur’s report. In a Feb. 8 letter, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer said the department did not violate any policy or practice and that the report did not engage in improper conduct.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly prejudicial because it is not offered to criticize or demean the President; rather, it is offered to explain Special Counsel Hur’s conclusions about the President’s state of mind in possessing and retaining classified information,” Weinsheimer wrote.
“For these reasons, inclusion of the identified language in the report and the report itself fall well within the Department’s standards for public release,” he wrote. “The report addresses whether the President, as a private citizen, mishandled classified information in violation of criminal laws. This sits near the apex of the public interest. The report and its release, including the identified language, are consistent with Department policies and practice.”