Special Counsel Takes Heat From Democrats Over Findings on Biden’s Memory

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Hur said those details were pertinent to his decision not to prosecute the president over his handling of classified materials.

But in one heated exchange, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said he believed Mr. Hur deliberately chose to use words he knew would damage the president politically.

“You understood how they would be manipulated by my colleagues here on the GOP side of the aisle, by President Trump. You understood that, did you not?” Mr. Schiff asked.

Mr. Hur replied that he understood that much of his report would be made public but denied having any political agenda.

Mr. Schiff, undeterred, continued to sling accusations of prejudice and political bias at the special counsel.

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“There is nothing more common with a witness of any age, when asked about events that are years old, to say, ‘I do not recall,’” he said. “Indeed, they’re instructed by their attorney to do that if they have any question about it. You understood that; you made a choice. That was a political choice; it was the wrong choice.”

But Mr. Hur asserted that he was required to give a full account of his reasoning to the attorney general. “What you are suggesting is that I shape, sanitize, omit portions of my reasoning and explanation to the attorney general for political reasons,” he said before he was cut off.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) also accused Mr. Hur of political motives, holding that he was trying to get former President Donald Trump elected in the hopes of securing an appointment “as a federal judge, perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice.”

Mr. Hur denied having such aspirations. He added that politics “had no place in the investigative steps that I took, no place in the decision that I made, and it had no place in a single word of my report.”

‘Double Standard’

Democrats were not the only ones to take exception to Mr. Hur’s report.

With President Trump currently facing charges over his own handling of classified documents, Republicans on the committee wanted to know why Mr. Hur had let President Biden off the hook.

“It’s unfortunate that we have a Department of Justice that will treat one person one way and somebody else a different way,” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said. “It’s a sad day for America.”

In his Feb. 8 report, Mr. Hur concluded that President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen. Yet at the same time, the special counsel said the evidence was insufficient to establish President Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—particularly in the eyes of a sympathetic jury.

“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,” Mr. Hur wrote.

“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.”

But Republicans on Tuesday pushed back on the notion that the evidence did not support prosecution.

“Sometimes, he may be sleepy. Sometimes he may be forgetful. Sometimes he may be cognitively impaired, there’s no doubt about that,” Mr. Van Drew said.

“But man, when it came to his personal legacy, the way he wanted to be remembered, to make sure that he was a big deal, in plain English, in the future, he was willingly, unknowingly breaking the law.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) agreed, citing the report’s revelation that the president—when he was a private citizen—shared information with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, with the warning to “be careful” because it “may be classified.”

“That warning to be careful because it may be classified—that indicates guilty knowledge,” Mr. Biggs said. “That indicates he might know something more than he otherwise would have. … So, when you look at this, it’s hard for me to say, well, he was ignorant, he was incompetent, it was accidental. He had guilty knowledge.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) expressed frustration with Mr. Hur’s citation of President Biden’s faulty memory as reason not to prosecute.

“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 doesn’t go to the top floor, you don’t think you can get a conviction,” Mr. Gaetz said.

Mr. Hur denied that all elements of a violation had been met, holding that he would not have been able to prove President Biden acted with criminal intent.

Mr. Gaetz also questioned the special counsel’s decision not to charge Mr. Zwonitzer with obstruction of justice after learning that he had deleted recordings of his interviews with President Biden.

“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?” he asked.

Mr. Hur replied that Mr. Zwonitzer had not deleted the transcripts of the recordings.

“Oh, so if you destroy some evidence but not other evidence, that somehow absolves you of the evidence you destroyed?” Mr. Gaetz shot back. “Here’s what I see: Zwonitzer should’ve been charged—wasn’t; Biden and Trump should’ve been treated equally—they weren’t. And that is the double standard that I think a lot of Americans are concerned about.”

White House Responds

As the special counsel dodged the arrows on Capitol Hill, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams shot off several more via social media.

In another, Mr. Sams challenged Mr. Hur’s assertion that he did not “sanitize” his explanation in his report or “disparage the president unfairly.”

“Former top DOJ leaders disagree,” said Mr. Sams, citing former Attorney General Eric Holder’s opinion that the report had “way too many gratuitous remarks,” among others’ comments.

Despite disagreeing with the special counsel’s description of the president’s memory, the White House has heralded his decision not to prosecute as a testament to President Biden’s innocence of any wrongdoing.

Savannah Hulsey Pointer and Jackson Richman contributed to this report.