A newly released transcript sheds fresh light on President Joe Biden’s memories about his son’s death during an interview with prosecutors investigating his handling of classified documents
The White House knew it had a political problem on its hands when a special counsel report questioned President Joe Biden’s memory last month, but Biden saw a much more personal affront as well.
Robert Hur, who had been appointed to investigate whether Biden mishandled classified documents, wrote that the president couldn’t recall in an interview with prosecutors the date when his adult son, Beau, died of cancer. It was a shocking contention about a keystone event in Biden’s life, and it fed into questions about whether the 81-year-old president is fit to serve another term.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden angrily declared during a hastily arranged press conference after the report was released. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
The reality of the situation, however, isn’t as clear as either Biden or Hur portrayed, according to a transcript of the interview released on Tuesday before the former special counsel testifies on Capitol Hill.
Hur didn’t ask the president about his son’s death; Biden brought it up himself during a discussion about how he stored documents at a rental home in Virginia after leaving the vice president’s office in 2017.
And Biden recalled the specific date that Beau died, although he briefly wondered aloud about the year as the conversation toggled between various events.
