In his report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information after his time as Obama’s Vice President, Special Counsel Robert Hur famously said that Biden was an “elderly man with a poor memory” when explaining why he declined to prosecute him. Rep. Adam Schiff of California lost it on Hur during a recent House hearing into the report over that quote, claiming it was politically charged.
As background, in the report, the special counsel said, “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 . . . 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.”
Elsewhere, the special counsel gave examples of Biden’s failing memory. The report provided, “In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”), He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama. In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall.”
Then, on Tuesday, March 12, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing into the report. During that hearing, Rep. Schiff went berserk and claimed that Hur had a political motive behind his report and could not “be so naive” to not know that there would be a “political firestorm” over how he characterized Biden and his memory in the report.
Making that claim during the hearing, Rep. Schiff snapped, “You say it wasn’t political and yet you must have understood, you must have understood the impact of your words. You must have understood the impact of your decision to go beyond the specifics of a particular document to go to the very general, to your own personal prejudicial, subjective opinion of the president. One you knew would be amplified by his political opponent. When you knew that would influence a political campaign. You had to understand that and you did it anyway. You did it anyway.”
He also said, “But you understood nevertheless. Mr. Hur, you cannot tell me you’re so naive as to think your words would not have created a political firestorm. You understood that, didn’t you? When you wrote those words. When you decided to include those words. When you decided to go beyond specific references to documents. You understood how they would be manipulated by my colleagues here on the GOP side of the aisle and by President Trump. You understood that, did you not?”
Rep. Schiff further claimed, “But what is in the rules, Mr. Hur, What is in the rules is you don’t gratuitously do things to prejudice the subject of an investigation when you’re declining to prosecute. You don’t gratuitously add language that you know will be useful in a political campaign. You were not born yesterday. You understood exactly what you were doing. It was a choice. You certainly didn’t have to include that language. You could have said vis a vis the documents that were found at the university the president did not recall… There is nothing more common. You know this, I know this. There is nothing more common with a witness of any age when asked about events that are years old to say, ‘I do not recall.’ Indeed they are instructed by their attorney to do that, if they have any question about it. You understood that. You made a choice. That was a political choice. It was the wrong choice.”
Special Counsel Hur, for his part, claimed that his investigation was not tainted by political considerations or other biases, telling the irate California congressman, “Congressman, Politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps.”
Watch the fiery back and forth here:
