President
Joe
Biden
on
Thursday
evening
strongly
disputed
new
claims
by
Department
of
Justice
special
counsel
Robert
Hur
that
he
“willfully
retained
and
disclosed
classified
materials”
as
a
private
citizen,
and
that
he
had
exhibited
poor
memory
during
an
interview
about
that
material.
“My
memory
has
not
gotten
worse,”
Biden
told
reporters
in
a
nationally
televised
address
at
the
White
House
hours
after
Hur
released
his
report.
“My
memory
is
fine.”
“I’m
an
elderly
man,
and
I
know
what
the
hell
I’m
doing,”
Biden
said,
in
response
to
a
reporter’s
question
that
noted
Hur’s
reference
to
the
president
as
elderly.
“I’ve
been
president
and
I
put
this
country
back
on
its
feet.
I
don’t
need
his
recommendation,”
Biden
said.
But
minutes
later,
Biden
referred
to
Egypt’s
president
as
the
“president
of
Mexico.”
Biden
was
visibly
angry
at
Hur’s
claim
that
he
could
not
remember
the
year
his
son
Beau
Biden
died,
which
the
special
counsel
cited
among
other
examples
of
evidence
that
Biden’s
memory
“appeared
hazy”
during
interviews
with
investigators.
The
president
said
that
when
he
was
asked
a
question
about
that
year
Beau
died
“I
thought
to
myself
[it]
wasn’t
any
of
their
damn
business.”
“How
in
the
hell
dare
he
raise
that,”
Biden
said
of
Hur.
“I
don’t
need
anyone
to
remind
me
when
he
passed
away.”
U.S.
President
Joe
Biden
gestures
as
he
delivers
remarks
at
the
White
House
in
Washington,
U.S.,
February
8,
2024.
Kevin
Lamarque
|
Reuters
The
main
legal
takeaway
from
Hur’s
report
was
the
special
counsel’s
decision
not
to
criminally
charge
Biden
despite
what
Hur
said
was
the
president’s
willful
retention
of
classified
documents
and
disclosure
of
some
classified
material
to
the
ghostwriter
of
his
2017
memoir.
The
material
was
retained
in
Biden’s
Wilmington,
Delaware,
home,
and
at
an
office
in
Washington,
D.C.,
after
he
ceased
being
vice
president
in
January
2017.
Biden’s
lawyers
have
said
the
material
began
being
found
in
late
2022,
months
after
former
President
Donald
Trump
was
indicted
on
charges
related
to
retaining
classified
documents
at
his
Florida
residence
after
he
left
the
White
House,
and
to
his
obstructing
efforts
by
officials
to
recover
those
documents.
Biden
said, “I’ve
seen
the
headlines
since
the
report
was
released
about
my
willful
retention
of
documents.”
“These
assertions
are
not
only
misleading,
they’re
just
plain
wrong,”
the
president
said.
Biden
forcefully
denied
sharing
the
material
with
the
writer.
And
the
president
noted
that
Hur
on
page
215
of
the
same
report
wrote
that
“while
it
is
natural
to
assume
that
Mr.
Biden
put
the
Afghanistan
documents
in
the
box
on
purpose
and
that
he
knew
they
were
there,
there
is
in
fact
a
shortage
of
evidence
on
these
points.”
“We
do
not
know
why,
how,
or
by
whom
the
documents
were
placed
in
the
box,”
the
report
had
said.
On
page
12
of
the
report,
Biden
noted,
the
special
counsel
wrote,
“For
other
recovered
classified
documents,
after
a
thorough
investigation
the
decision
to
decline
criminal
charges
was
straightforward.”
Those
classified
documents
were
found
in
a
Washington,
D.C.,
office
Biden
had
used
after
he
ended
his
tenure
as
vice
president
in
January
2017,
and
in
collections
of
his
U.S.
Senate
papers
at
the
University
of
Delaware.
“The
evidence
suggests
that
Mr.
Biden
did
not
willfully
retain
these
documents
and
that
they
could
plausibly
have
been
brought
to
these
locations
by
mistake,”
the
report
said.
Despite
that
language,
Hur
in
his
report
used
evidence
of
what
he
said
was
Biden’s
“poor
memory”
to
further
justify
his
decision
not
to
criminally
charge
the
president.
“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
special
counsel
said
in
his
report.
Hur’s
repeated
references
to
Biden’s
memory
sparked
a
bitter
backlash
from
the
White
House
and
Biden’s
supporters
before
the
president
made
his
televised
address.
Biden’s
lawyers
in
a
letter
to
Hur
appended
to
the
report
wrote,
“We
do
not
believe
that
the
report’s
treatment
of
President
Biden’s
memory
is
accurate
or
appropriate.”
“The
report
uses
highly
prejudicial
language
to
describe
a
commonplace
occurrence
among
witnesses:
a
lack
of
recall
of
years-old
events,”
the
lawyers
wrote.
Biden,
in
his
comments
Thursday
night
said,
“For
any
extraneous
commentary,
they
don’t
know
what
they’re
talking
about,”
referring
to
Hur’s
remarks
about
his
memory.
“It
has
no
place
in
that
report.”
Biden
said
that
he
should
have
personally
overseen
the
transfer
of
boxes
from
his
vice
presidential
office
in
2017,
as
opposed
to
relying
on
staff
to
perform
that
task.
“I
take
responsibility
for
not
having
seen
exactly
what
my
staff
was
doing,”
he
said.
“And
so
I
wish
I
had
paid
more
attention
to
how
the
documents
were
being
moved
to
where
I
thought
they’d
be
moved
to,
the
[National]
Archives,”
he
said,
referring
to
the
legal
repository
for
governmental
records.
Biden
also
contrasted
his
conduct
to
that
of
Trump’s.
“All
the
stuff
that
was
in
my
home
was
in
filing
cabinets
that
were
either
locked
or
able
to
be
locked,”
Biden
said.
“It
was
in
my
house.
It
was
out,
and
like
in
[Trump’s
private
club]
Mar-a-Lago
in
a
public
place
…
and
none
of
it
was
highly
classified.”
Biden
said
he
agreed
with
the
decision
by
Attorney
General
Merrick
Garland
to
appoint
a
special
counsel
to
investigate
his
retention
of
the
documents.
In
doing
so,
Garland,
who
was
appointed
by
Biden
to
lead
the
Department
of
Justice,
sought
to
avoid
an
appearance
of
conflict
that
could
arise
from
having
the
department
itself
conduct
the
probe.
Hur
previously
was
U.S.
Attorney
for
Maryland.
He
was
appointed
to
that
post
by
Trump.
“I
think
a
special
counsel
should
have
been
appointed,”
Biden
said.
“And
the
reason
I
think
a
special
counsel
should
have
been
appointed
is
because
I
did
not
want
to
be
in
a
position
[where]
they
looked
at
Trump
and
weren’t
going
to
look
at
me,
just
like
they
looked
at
[Trump’s]
vice
president”
Mike
Pence,
who
also
was
not
criminally
charged
for
retaining
classified
documents
after
a
DOJ
investigation
ended
last
June.
“And
the
fact
is
they
[Hur]
made
a
firm
conclusion:
I
did
not
break
the
law,
period,”
Biden
said.
