Unlike Trump, Joe Biden returned documents and participated in his probe, the investigation notes, but raises issues with Biden’s memory.
While Joe Biden won’t be charged for willfully withholding classified government documents, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into the president suggested that his mental capacity could be in decline. The White House quickly pushed back on the assertion Thursday afternoon.
Hur, a Republican appointee, announced the decision Thursday not to bring any charges involving Biden improperly retaining government documents from his time as former President Barack Obama’s vice president and as a senator, following a year-long investigation.
In the 379-page-long report, which White House counsel Bob Bauer referred to as one of “investigative excess,” Biden was found to have “willfully retained” and revealed classified military and national security information. In his report, Hur also asserted that Biden “appeared to have significant limitations” in his mental abilities, particularly when it came to his memory.
Hur used a 2017 recorded conversation between Biden and author Mark Zwonitzer, who cowrote two of Biden’s memoirs, as an example of Biden’s poor memory.
“Mr. Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries,” the report reads.
