Special Counsel Finds President Too Old To Be Charged In Documents Case

The President's Mental Faculties Are Now A Matter Of Public Record

In the latest installment of “news items that surprised absolutely no one”, Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to seek an indictment of President Biden regarding his demonstrable (and demonstrably criminal) mishandling of classified documents after his tenure as Obama’s Vice President.

Special counsel Robert Hur has declined to prosecute President Joe Biden for his handling of classified documents, but said Biden’s practices “present serious risks to national security” and added that Biden portrayed himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who would be sympathetic to a jury.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report said, but added that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

We should not forget that the issue of unlawfully retaining classified documents is substantially the exact same issue over which Donald Trump received his first round of indictments from Special Persecutor Prosecutor Jack Smith.

The Trump Circus Moves To The Federal Tent

However, the indictment raises yet more questions about the potential political nature of the case.

• After leaving the Vice Presidency, President Biden retained similar classified documents including intelligence memos and briefing documents.

Among the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.

• Moreover, some of the material was classified “sensitive compartmented information”, which can only be viewed in a specially designated “sensitive compartmented information facility” (“SCIF”).
  
  Ironically, Biden had been quite critical of Trump over the handling of classified materials:

Biden was critical of Trump when he saw the photograph taken by the FBI that showed an array of documents found on Trump’s property last summer.

“How that could possibly happen? How one – anyone could be that irresponsible?” Biden said. “And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? By that I mean names of people who helped or, et cetera. … totally irresponsible.”

• If we take the President at his word, his own malfeasance in this regard should be met with equal response.
  
  The investigation into the handling of those documents is ongoing. However, given this indictment of Donald Trump, one has to wonder if the President should also not be indicted on substantially the same charges. Following Congressman Jeffries tweeted position that the law must be applied “without fear or favor”, such an indictment would be almost mandatory.

Robert Hur’s decision not to indict the President on its face appears to be a most unequal application of the law—that the Espionage Act is indeed being applied with both fear and favor.

It is clear that Robert Hur found substantial evidence that Biden willfully kept classified documents. His report states this plainly.

Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods. FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home.

Despite having amassed evidence of the same conduct for which Donald Trump was indicted, Robert Hur believed criminal charges were inappropriate—in large part because he believed Biden could successfully present himself at trial as having “poor memory” (emphasis mine).

In addition. Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires.

Because Biden’s memory was so limited during his FBI interview, Robert Hur concluded that, if the case proceeded to trial, Biden would present himself as essentially a doddering old fool, and thus escape conviction (emphasis mine).

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. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.

In other words, Biden successfully persuaded Robert Hur that he really is a doddering old fool. President Biden successfully made “Dementia Joe” a legal defense.

Of course, if he is the doddering old fool he told Robert Hur he was, why is he still sitting in the Oval Office?

Perhaps more crucially, why have the other members of his Cabinet and his Administration not sought to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Robert Hur concluded, rightly or wrongly, that Joe Biden is of dubious mental competence to stand trial. If we take Robert Hur’s report at face value, on what basis do we now presume that Joe Biden possesses sufficient mental competence to carry on as President of the United States?

On what basis do Democrats defend his candidacy for this fall’s Presidential Election?

On what basis do Democrats defend arguably having covered up Biden’s apparent mental incompetency for at least the past year?

Even corporate media is finding it impossible not to consider these questions.

Special counsel Robert Hur’s portrait of a man who couldn’t remember when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president, or the year when his beloved son Beau died, dealt a blow to Biden’s argument that he is still sharp and fit enough to serve another four-year term.

In deciding not to charge Biden with any crimes, the special counsel wrote that in a potential trial, “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Robert Hur declined to indict Joe Biden in a court of law. In so doing, he may very well have indicted both him and the Democratic Party in the court of public opinion.