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US special counsel Robert Hur’s newly released report cites President Joe Biden’s memory and advanced age as a reason not to charge him for mishandling classified documents.
In Hur’s yearlong investigation, his team found several classified documents improperly stored outside the White House stemming from Biden’s time in the Senate and vice presidency.
And while Biden’s likely 2024 presidential challenger, former President Donald Trump, was charged with 37 felony counts in 2023 for similarly holding onto documents, Hur’s report cited several reasons not to charge the current, sitting president, such as his age and declining memory.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. 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,” the report said, noting potential jurors would likely want to give him the benefit of the doubt. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Responding to the report, White House counsel Richard Sauber emphasized the fact that charges weren’t recommended.
“We disagree with a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments in the Special Counsel’s report,” Sauber said. “Nonetheless, the most important decision the Special Counsel made—that no charges are warranted—is firmly based on the facts and evidence.”
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