Hur pushed back on Democrats who claimed his report cleared Biden of any wrongdoing, saying the report ‘did not exonerate’ the president.
- Hur left the Justice Department on Monday and is testifying as a private citizen, a DOJ spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com
- Hur shockingly revealed that Biden’s ghost writer tried to hide evidence after he was named special counsel in the case
- ‘I did not share classified information,’ Biden insisted. ‘Guarantee you, I did not.’
- Biden forgot the year Beau died, when Trump was elected and said ‘I don’t recall’, ‘I don’t remember’ and ‘I have no goddam idea’ over 100 TIMES
Former special counsel Robert Hur revealed in Capitol Hill testimony that Biden ‘willfully’ retained classified materials as a private citizen and gave them to Mark Zwonitzer – the ghost writer of his $8 million book – who later tried to destroy them.
Hur arrived on Capitol Hill to offer insight into his devastating classified documents report that painted Biden as ‘elderly’ and ‘forgetful’ and with ‘diminished faculties,’ but did not recommend charges for the president.
He pushed back on Democrats who claimed his report cleared Biden of any wrongdoing, saying it ‘did not exonerate’ the president.
‘We identified evidence that the President willfully retained classified materials after the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen,’ Hur said during the high-stakes hearing.
Hur said that included in the evidence was a recorded conversation between Biden and his ghost writer Zwonitzer in which the president stated that he had just ‘found all the classified stuff downstairs.’
After leaving the vice presidency, Biden and now-First Lady Jill signed a multi-book deal with Flatiron Books valued at $8 million, according to Publishers Weekly.
The first book, ‘Promise Me, Dad,’ a memoir that centers on when his son Beau died and he decided not to run for president in 2015, briefly topped the best sellers list.
Hur shockingly revealed that the ghost writer tried to hide evidence after he was named special counsel in the case.
‘What did that ghostwriter do with the information Joe Biden shared with him on his laptop, what did he do after you were named special counsel?’ House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan asked the former special counsel.
‘He slid those files into the recycle bin on his computer,’ Hur said.
He ‘tried to destroy the evidence, didn’t he?’ asked Jordan.
‘Correct,’ said Hur.
Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan noted Biden got $8 million for his book deal and argued Biden knowingly handed over those documents to the writer.
‘Pride and money is why he knowingly violated the rules,’ Jordan said of Biden. ‘The oldest motives in the book, pride and money. Do you agree with that?’
‘That language does appear in the report and we did identify evidence supporting those assessments,’ Hur said back.
Biden said in his interview with Hur that he made more from the book sale than he ever made in his life.
‘I ended up making more money on the sale of that book than I ever made in my whole life,’ Biden said. ‘I was able to give a million dollars away to charity. I’ve always wanted to do that.’
Biden, in a fiery news conference on February 8 after Hur’s bombshell report was published, swore he had not shared classified documents.
‘I did not share classified information,’ Biden insisted. ‘Guarantee you, I did not.’ He added he wasn’t aware how the boxes containing classified documents ended up in his garage.
Hur’s description of the president as ‘well-meaning,’ ‘elderly’ and having a ‘poor memory’ drew condemnation from Democrats – who say he didn’t need to muse on the president’s age.
He explained his decision to make the assessment in the hearing: ‘I knew that for my position to be credible. I could not simply announce that there would be no charges, I needed to explain why. I needed to show my work.’
Hur left the Justice Department on Monday and is testifying as a private citizen, a DOJ spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com.
The former special counsel said he could not make a decision on whether Biden’s retaining of classified documents was ‘willful’ without considering his state of mind.
‘My assessment relevant to the president’s memory was necessary, accurate and fair.’
‘I did not sanitize my assessment nor did I disparage the president unfairly,’ said Hur.
‘I had to explain why different facts require different outcomes,’ he added, referring to Trump being charged for mishandling documents and Biden avoiding charges.
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Biden Lied About Beau Exchange With Robert Hur During Angry Press Conference, Transcript Confirms
President Joe Biden lied about an exchange with special counsel Robert Hur regarding his son Beau during an angry press conference following the release of Hur’s report last month, a transcript of their five-hour interview confirms.
Hur’s report detailing the president’s handling of classified documents made several notes about Biden’s memory, including that he forgot the date of his son’s death and when his vice presidency began and ended. Biden held an unexpected press conference a few hours after the release of the report, criticizing Hur for questioning his late son’s death. The president, however, was the one who raised the date of his son’s death, according to the transcript the Daily Caller obtained .
Rather than pushing Biden about the date of Beau Biden’s death, Hur questioned the president on where work-related papers were being kept following the conclusion of his vice presidency in January of 2017.
“Well, um … I, I, I, I, I don’t know. This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?” Biden began.
“Yes, sir,” Hur responded.
“Remember, in this time frame, my son is — either been deployed or is dying, and, 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. I’m not — and not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did,” Biden began. “And so I hadn’t, I hadn’t, at this point — even though I’m at Penn, 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 30 —”
“2015,” Rachel Cotton, a White House lawyer, interjected.
During his post-release press conference, Biden blasted Hur for asking him about his son’s death, despite the report revealing that did not happen. “How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
During the Hur interview, the president went on to ask when former President Donald Trump was elected, and several speakers correct the president when he asks if it was November of 2017. The unidentified speakers tell the president that he left the vice presidency in January of 2017, which is why the year is coming up.
“OK, yeah,” Biden confirms. “And in 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal …” the president continues, appearing to forget the year of his late son’s death again.
In his report, Hur noted that Biden willfully kept classified documents, but declined to pursue charges. The special counsel justified his decision by citing the memory lapses and adding that the jury might see Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” (RELATED: FLASHBACK: Democrats Had No Problem With Robert Hur Until He Became A Thorn For Joe Biden)
The White House rebuked Hur, calling the report “flatly wrong,” “inappropriate” and “politically motivated.” The special counsel is now set to testify in front of Congress on Tuesday about his investigation.
The transcript provides new insight into a number of key moments from Biden’s interview with Hur beyond the Beau and vice presidential exchanges.
Biden repeatedly throws his own staff under the bus, as he did during the post-report press conference, failing to take personal ownership for the mishandling of classified documents.
“I don’t want to hold them responsible or get them in trouble, but I believe they were the ones who were packing up … and were deciding, you know, where, where things were going, to the best of my knowledge,” Biden said of his staff. He added he had “no goddamn idea” what was in one set of files shipped to his house.
The president claimed to not recall or struggled to recount certain details he was asked about on a number of occasions. Biden said he had no memory of a comment he made about a 2009 memo to then-President Barack Obama about surging troops to Afghanistan. Biden had told the ghostwriter for his memoir that he found the memo amongst classified documents downstairs.
“It has nothing to do with the investigation, you’ll understand why this is sensitive,” Biden said. “The president thought that I knew a lot more about Afghanistan than he did, and other members of the administration.”
Biden added that the memo was handwritten because it would have taken him five times as long to type it. In a separate exchange, Biden remarked that Obama didn’t want him to run for president in 2016 because he believed that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a better chance of winning the election.
Despite claiming that his staff was ultimately responsible for moving around classified documents and moving items in and out of his residence, Biden displayed a highly-detailed knowledge of the architecture of his home and said he participated in moving his belongings in and out as well.
“I’m a frustrated architect,” Biden said, while explaining that his home had seven different types of molding. “In order to try to convince me not to run for Senate for the 19th time, my wife said, ‘Look, you don’t run, I’ll pay for architectural school for you.”
At one point, Hur remarked that Biden had “a photographic understanding and, and recall of the house.”
Biden also stated “I remember moving boxes, literally physically moving them, with help, one side to the other so I could get the Corvette in that garage on the left.”
At various times during the interview, Hur had to implore Biden to answer his questions rather than go off on unrelated tangents. Biden once blew past Hur’s attempt to re-focus the interview to explain to him how the torque on electric cars worked, complete with “car noises.”
“You step your foot on the accelerator all the way down until it gets about six, seven grand,” Biden said. “Then all the sudden it will say ‘launch.’ All you do is take your foot off the brake.”
Biden then made a car engine sound, according to the transcript.
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