Special counsel Robert Hur has made himself an enemy of the national political press for the offense of telling the truth.
Special counsel Robert Hur has made himself an enemy of the national political press for the offense of telling the truth about Joe Biden’s failing memory. Hur cited Biden’s age and poor memory as a chief basis for not prosecuting Biden mishandling national-security documents while out of office — the same sorts of mishandling that resulted in Jack Smith bringing three dozen felony charges against Donald Trump. He’s being assailed for partisanship in releasing a report detailing his findings, analysis, and conclusions — assailed by all the same people who lauded the Mueller report’s findings, analysis, and conclusions, and who assure us that it is offensive to even raise the possibility of partisanship or bias on the part of Smith or David Weiss or elected Democrats Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis. Yet, as even Glenn Thrush at the New York Times conceded, Mr. Hur, a registered Republican who has steered clear of partisan politics during a two-decade career as a prosecutor, was chosen, in part, because of his reputation for calmly handling the pressure of high-wire investigations and internal department politics.”
While the tape recordings of Hur’s interview with Biden have not been released, we now have two transcripts. The spin machine is in overdrive. Matt Viser at the Washington Post: “Full transcript of Biden’s special counsel interview paints nuanced portrait — The president doesn’t seem as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be — and Hur doesn’t appear as crass as Biden has portrayed him.” (Democrats entered that article into evidence at today’s hearing, reading aloud only that title and subtitle.) The Times: “How the Special Counsel’s Portrayal of Biden’s Memory Compares With the Transcript — The special counsel, Robert K. Hur, accused the president last month of ‘significant’ memory problems. The interview transcript offers context to his report.”
Some of these efforts are hilariously misleading. Kyle Cheney of Politico: “CAN’T MAKE IT UP: In the first sentence of the first part of Hur’s Biden interview — which has become about Biden’s grasp of dates and recall — Hur gets the time of day wrong.” Cheney cites Hur saying “Good morning everybody. Mr. President, thank you for your time. Actually, it’s technically afternoon. Good afternoon.” Cheney’s screenshot cuts off the part of the transcript reflecting that this was 12:15 p.m., so only just the beginning of the afternoon, and Hur instantly corrected his greeting.
Tim Miller of the Bulwark: “’What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,’ he said, naming the correct day, according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed by The Washington Post. Not a good look for Hur. . . .”
Not a good look? Let’s consider the actual exchange. Hur asks, specifically, about the time when Biden was living at a house in Virginia after leaving the vice presidency. Biden asks:
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, um, . . . I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?
MR. HUR: Yes, sir.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Remember, in this timeframe, my son is — either been deployed or is dying, and, so it was — and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the President [Obama]. I’m not – and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she [Hillary Clinton] had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t at this point — even though I’m at Penn [his post-presidential think tank], I hadn’t walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I’d be running for President. And, and so what was happening though — what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th—
MS. COTTON: 2015.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2015.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Was it 2015 he died?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It was May of 2015.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: It was 2015…
MR. BAUER: Or I’m not sure the month, sir, but I think that was the year.
MR. KIRKBAUM: That’s right, Mr. President. It —
PRESIDENT BIDEN: And what’s happened in the meantime is that as — and Trump gets elected in November of 2017?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: ’16.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: ’16, 2016. All right so — why do I have 2017 here?
MR. SISKEL: That’s when you left office, January of 2017.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Yeah, okay. But that’s when Trump gets sworn in then, January —
MR. SISKEL: Right.
MR. BAUER: Right, correct.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Okay, yeah. And in 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal – the genesis of the book and the title Promise Me, Dad . . .[goes into discussion of Beau’s death.] [Emphasis added.]
This clearly supports Hur’s conclusion that Biden couldn’t keep straight either what year Beau died or when Biden’s vice presidency ended. The entire conversation is about a time frame when Biden was in private life, living in Virginia. He was out of office. There was much testimony preceding this about the house in Virginia and what Biden was doing after leaving office. Yet, Beau died when Biden was vice president — four months before Biden announced that he was not running for president in 2016. (As you may recall, he announced that after Hillary Clinton’s camp started floating that they’d attack Biden for opposing the Osama bin Laden raid.) And Beau’s deployment, which Biden cites here, ended in 2009. A bigger issue than just getting the number on the year wrong is Biden not being able to keep straight whether or not he was still in office when his son died. Biden was trying to filibuster the question by injecting Beau’s death, but he very obviously suggested that Beau died or was deployed at the time when Biden lived in Virginia, in private life. Biden then can’t even remember what year the presidential election was, even though every American knows that presidential elections happen in even-numbered leap years.
The transcript also contradicts Biden’s later account of how this exchange went down:
“There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” a visibly irate Biden told reporters hours after special counsel Robert Hur’s report was made public last month. “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself: It wasn’t any of their damn business.”
Even Viser concedes that it was Biden, not Hur, who raised Beau’s death.
More than a few people look bad here. Robert Hur is not one of them.