OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Following a months-long investigation into the president’s alleged improper retention of classified records, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report states that he will not recommend filing criminal charges against President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents.
Since last year, Hur has been looking into Biden’s improper retention of classified records. Hur claimed that among the other records about foreign policy and national security, there were classified documents concerning the military and foreign policy in Afghanistan that involved “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
“We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” the report states. “We would reach the same conclusion even if the Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president.”
The special counsel also described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” as Fox News noted.
“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,” Hur wrote in the report. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable 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.”
But Hur said his investigation “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
The materials included “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
Hur said FBI agents recovered the materials from “the garages, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.”
But Hur said that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Prosecution of Mr. Biden is also unwarranted based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors set forth in the Department of Justice’s Principles of Federal Prosecution,” the report states. “For these reasons, we decline prosecution of Mr. Biden.”
The report contained horrifying images that the Biden campaign allegedly feared would hurt his chances of winning reelection in 2024.
Initial discovery of classified documents took place on November 2, 2022, within the Penn Biden Center think tank’s offices in Washington, D.C.; however, public disclosure did not occur until early January 2023.
The public was made aware of a second cache of classified documents discovered in the president’s Wilmington garage earlier this month, which led Attorney General Merrick Garland to designate former U.S. Attorney Rob Hur as special counsel.
Additional classified documents were discovered in the president’s Delaware home a few days later.
During a search lasting over 12 hours, the FBI obtained more classified documents from Biden’s Delaware residence.
🚨 BREAKING: Photos reveal boxes of classified documents Joe Biden stored in his Garage pic.twitter.com/XYp006dI1Y
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 8, 2024
However, on November 18, 2022, Garland named Jack Smith, a former employee of the DOJ, as special counsel to look into the possibility that Trump was holding secret documents at Mar-a-Lago improperly.
Smith’s appointment to look into Trump coincided with an internal investigation into President Biden’s improper handling of classified documents by Garland and senior DOJ officials. Public disclosure of that review and the finding of classified documents at Biden’s office did not occur until January.
Outraged, Republicans and former Trump allies blasted the Justice Department for applying a double standard.
Regarding all 37 felonies arising from Smith’s investigation, Trump entered a not-guilty plea. The accusations consist of making false statements, conspiring to obstruct justice, and purposefully keeping confidential national defense information.
As part of a superseding indictment stemming from Smith’s investigation, Trump, the front-runner for the GOP in 2024, was then charged with three more counts: two more counts of obstruction and one more count of willful retention of information related to national defense. Trump entered a not-guilty plea.
The date of that trial is May 20, 2024.
Before their anticipated 2024 rematch, Biden’s staff members expressed concern to Axios that Trump’s campaign might use the images against the incumbent Democrat.
The campaign feared the pictures would reveal Biden’s methods for storing sensitive documents. The secret records date back to Biden’s vice presidential campaign under former President Barack Obama.
