A report from a special counsel who found U.S. President Joe Biden had mishandled classified documents but that he would not be prosecuted partly because he came across as an “elderly man with a poor memory”, has cast doubt over the President’s ability to continue in office, yet alone seek re-election, his opponents say.
Special Counsel Robert Hur said that Biden has a memory so “hazy” and “poor” that he couldn’t remember when his own son had died or the term in which he served as Vice President.
Hur also found that Biden not only had a “faulty memory” but also suffered from “diminished faculties.”
The report found that Biden ‘willfully retained and disclosed classified materials’ after his vice-presidency to Barack Obama when he was again a private citizen, but that charges will not be brought because would be unlikely given that a jury would see him as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory… someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt”.
“Mr Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghost-writer in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023… He did not remember when he was vice president..” the report said.
“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.”
And the report also states that prosecution would not take place because of Biden’s “diminished faculties in advancing age, and his sympathetic demeanor. These factors likely make it difficult for jurors to conclude he had criminal intent.”
The White House is believed to be furious at the language used in the report, and Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said there were a number of “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments” in the special counsel’s report.
In relation to the mishandling of classified documents, Sauber said that it was “unfortunately a common occurrence” that sometimes such papers were packed away incorrectly and that this had happened to every administration for the past 50 years
However, some Republicans are calling for Biden to be removed because, as one claimed, he “seemingly lacks the ability to execute his presidential responsibilities.”
New York Congresswoman Rep. Claudia Tenney is calling for the Cabinet to “explore” the use of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove the President from office, following what she described as the Special Counsel’s “alarming” report.
“So it is incumbent upon you to explore proceedings to remove the President pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Tenney wrote. “President Biden needs to be charged, or he needs to be removed.”
In response to the findings, the White House held a rare and hastily-convened evening press conference which sought to show, as Sky Correspondent Mark Stone wrote, that Biden was “fit, able, in control and that there was nothing wrong with his mind or his memory”.
Instead, it was “chaos”, Stone said. A furious Biden took aim at the report’s allegation that he had forgotten when his son had died.
“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, wasn’t any of their damn business.”
“I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” Biden continued. “For any extraneous commentary, they don’t know what they’re talking about. It has no place in this report.”
But he then seemed to compound the damage from the report when, in addressing a question on Gaza, he confused the the presidents of Egypt and Mexico – describing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as ‘the President of Mexico’.
“The President of Mexico, Al Sisi, did not want to open up the gate (to Gaza) to allow humanitarian material to get in,” Biden said. “I talked to him, I convinced him to open the gate.”
Joe Biden just declared that Mexico is on the border of Gaza pic.twitter.com/RrlAosfQ00
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 9, 2024
House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) in a joint statement with Republican House leaders said the report shows that President Biden “is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.”
Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election as the Republican nomination, said that the world was facing World War III and that America had a President who “can’t put two sentences together.”