In addition to the White House’s criticism of Robert Hur for stating plainly what we all can see: the president’s mental state, the right, led by Matt Gaetz, is now tearing into Hur for refusing to indict the president.
Hur was nominated as special counsel in a case against President Joe Biden after federal employees found classified documents while helping Biden move paperwork.
Despite finding copious amounts of classified information in several locations owned by the president, Hur’s February report decided not to press charges against the president, saying, “Biden would likely present himself to the jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,”
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt,” Hur added. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him by — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Although Hur let the president off the hook, Biden’s white house has been incredibly critical of his report, enraged by the public admission of Biden’s age and increasing senility.
On the other hand, supporters of former President Donald Trump are indignant that the government would absolve Biden of wrongdoing despite relentlessly pursuing Trump for the same crime. Left-wing media, tiptoeing around the question of Biden’s mental state, claim it’s because Biden was more cooperative during Hur’s investigation.
After reading Hur’s report, the U.S. House of Representatives had him testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
Matt Gaetz’s questioning has been circulating, raising questions about Hur’s unwillingness to indict.
Matt Gaetz to Special Counsel Robert Hur: “What does somebody have to do to get charged with obstruction of justice by you? If deleting the evidence of crimes doesn’t count, what would meet the standard?” pic.twitter.com/k1Sngcamm7
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 12, 2024
“As Mr. Armstrong laid out, you find in your report that the elements of a federal criminal violation are met, but then you apply this senile cooperator theory that because Joe Biden cooperated and the elevator didn’t go to the top floor, you don’t think you get a conviction? And I actually think you get to the right answer in that I don’t think Biden should have been charged, I don’t think Trump should have been charged,” Gaetz said during his questioning.
Furthermore, according to Hur’s report, President Biden’s “disclosure of classified information from his notebooks to his ghostwriter risked serious damage to America’s national security.”
Not only was the disclosed information classified, but the ghostwriter attempted to destroy evidence, deleting the recordings of his conversations with Biden, after hearing that Hur would be investigating Biden’s mishandling of classified information. Hur confirmed that the recordings were intentionally deleted because of the investigation.
Gaetz questioned Hur about this as well. Why wasn’t the ghostwriter charged with obstruction of justice? Because he apparently had “plausible, innocent reasons” for destroying evidence in response to an upcoming investigation.
Gaetz concluded his questioning with this comment, “So if you destroy some evidence, but not other evidence that somehow absolves you of the evidence you destroy, like, here’s what I see. zwanziger should have been charged wasn’t Biden and Trump should have been treated equally. They weren’t. And that is the double standard that I think a lot of Americans are concerned about.”
