Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert K. Hur as Special Counsel to investigate the documents that President Biden retained after he left office in early 2017.
Hur released his report, and he exonerated Biden of any criminal behavior.
But his report included scathing comments about Biden, disparaging his mental acuity.
Consider the disparate treatment of Biden and Trump. Biden promptly returned any documents; Trump resisted the government’s demand for his top secret, highly classified documents. Biden sat for a five-hour interview; Trump, to our knowledge, never submitted to an interview. So far as we know, Biden did not retain highly classified documents as Trump did.
So why the ad hominem comments that damage Biden politically?
Huffington Post did a quick summary of Robert Hur’s background.
Hur, a Republican, served as U.S. attorney of Maryland from 2018 to 2021, after being appointed by former President Donald Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions. He previously clerked for two well-known conservative judges, including archconservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.
Hur left his U.S. attorney post in 2021 to become a partner at the D.C.-based law firm Gibson Dunn. He was there until last January, when Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped him to oversee the department’s probe into Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified materials.
“Mr. Hur has a long and distinguished career as a prosecutor,” Garland said when announcing Hur as his pick for special counsel. “I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department.”
As Hur’s investigation of Biden began, he vowed to carry it out “with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment.”
“I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service,” he said at the time.
While Hur ultimately cleared Biden of any wrongdoing, he knocked the president’s mental acuity ― a detail that some Democrats said was extraneous, strange and unfair…
Hur’s mandate “was to judge whether a crime was committed… not speculate on what the jury would do, not to speculate on how full or sharp Joe Biden’s mind is,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) similarly said.
Prior to being U.S. attorney, Hur was an assistant U.S. attorney for Maryland for seven years. He also clerked for Rehnquist and for former Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Kozinski is perhaps best known for stepping down in disgrace in 2017 after more than a dozen former female law clerks and staffers accused him of sexual harassment and abuse.
Garland’s belief that Hur would carry out his assignment in an “even-handed” way “in accordance with the highest traditions” of the Justice Department was misplaced. Hur’s pledge that he would deliver a report that was “fair, impartial, and dispassionate” was untrue.
Garland wanted to demonstrate his integrity by choosing an investigator with sterling conservative credentials.
He would have been far wiser to have chosen a career prosecutor known for integrity and a nonpolitical history, never having been appointed by a Democrat or a Republican.
Sometimes bending over backwards to prove your own fairness can go to extremes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nice work, Garland.
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Indeed. Aie yie yie.
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John Harwood of ProPublica responded to Hur’s report by posting this video of an interview with Biden ten days before the president was interviewed by Hur, which incidentally occurred as Biden weighed a response to the Hamas attacks on Israel. Watch and make your own judgement about Biden’s mental acuity.
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Wow, Christine! Everyone on the blog should listen to this interview with Biden! It will give you a big boost if you’ve been listening to any of the folderol about he’s too old, cognitive decline etc.
(And just 10 days before being interviewed by Hur– obviously a very biased reporter).
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Put that link to the interview on Facebook, Twitter, wherever .
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In just the past week Biden has claimed that he recently spoke to Francois Mitterand of Germany, er, France, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Problem is, both of them have been dead for a while. So either he’s the kid from “The Sixth Sense” or he really is in cognitive decline.
As for Hur, if he really were out for Biden, he actually would have pressed charges, as his report indicated Biden was guilty as charged.
Your refusal to admit Biden’s decline despite so much evidence is really MAGA level cult behavior. You’re just a mirror image of people who would vote for Trump if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
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Dienne,
This is the last time I will post one of your anti-Biden diatribes. In November, voters will choose either Biden or Trump as president. Not one of your imaginary candidates. The stakes are high. Trump has demonstrated his contempt for the Constitution, norms, common decency, and democratic institutions. If he returns to office, he will enact limits on the press, arrest his political enemies, replace the civil service with political appointees, and finish his domination of federal courts. I know none of this matters to you. It matters to me. A Trump world is not one that I want to leave to my children and grandchildren. You have some nerve calling me a “MAGA enabler.” I will vote for Biden with enthusiasm. I prefer an elderly man with a bad memory who has wisdom, knowledge and experience to an elderly man who lies, cheats, steals, adores Putin and Kim, and is cruel and ignorant.
I don’t care who you vote for. Vote for a space alien.
Do me a favor: if you have nothing thoughtful or positive to say, please stop making comments.
Your tirades against Biden help Trump. Period.
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Thank you for validating Tom Dillon’s point. You are a partisan hack who will vote for Biden no matter what and you want facts censored so others can’t make fully informed choices. You’re no better than a MAGAt. Have the day you deserve.
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I would vote for an artichoke or a dog if that were the only opposition to fascist Trump and his white supremacist cult.
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dienne77,
You posted endlessly that Putin invaded Ukraine to fight Nazis. are you in cognitive decline?
Progressives AOC and Jamaal Bowman posted to criticize a legislator but they were in so much cognitive decline that they identified her as a Republican despite it being obvious to everyone she was a Democrat. Were they in more cognitive decline than someone who thinks Putin is fighting Nazis in Ukraine, or not in quite as much cognitive decline as someone who believes Putin is the world’s most admirable Nazi fighter?
You are holding Biden to a standard that you do NOT hold yourself or any of the politicians you claim to support.
Marianne Williamson said that “power of the mind” might have changed the course of Hurricane Dorian and stopped it from hitting the US in 2019.
Is Marianne suffering from cognitive decline like those who believe Putin is fighting Nazis in Ukraine?
Biden has done a better job than any president in the last 20 years or more. And you won’t vote for him and would be ok with a racist insurrectionist who does not believe in democracy because you believe the kinds of crazy things people in cognitive decline believe.
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^^^More people in cognitive decline:
Nikki Haley who completely forgot that the Civil War was about slavery.
Amy Coney Bryant, a legal scholar who forgot that the first amendment included the right to protest.
Barack Obama, who said you could keep your healthcare.
Robert Kennedy Jr., who says Ashkenazi Jews are less susceptible to covid and the polio vaccine caused cancer
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Just makes me wonder how far Garland would have gone as a Supreme Court justice to play nice with the likes of Alito and Thomas. His foot dragging on Trump’s crimes and his unwillingness to pull in the two Trump prosecutors who are obviously partisan in their action toward Hunter and the President is, to say the least, troubling.
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When people describe Diane Ravitch as a hyper-partisan and a former scholar, postings like this are the reason why. This is purely an ad hominem attack on the Special Counsel who was appointed by Democratic Attorney General Merrick Garland. In his report, Robert Hur took pains to explain that Biden was far more cooperative than was Trump regarding investigations into wrongful retention of classified documents. Hur noted that both men violated federal laws, but he declined to press charges against Biden because of his physical condition: a jury would very likely not convict someone in Biden’s mental condition. I was an assistant district attorney for 16 years, and my office had numerous cases that we declined to prosecute on these same grounds. Hur publicly justified his decision not to prosecute a clearly guilty Biden. That’s why he gave the specific reason why: Biden’s impaired cognitive abilities.
But Diane Ravitch wants Biden to be re-elected, so she wants relevant information about Biden’s obvious mental decline to be hidden from the voters. I share your concern about Trump, but being dishonest with the public is not the way to prevent a second Trump term. There is already much distrust of the media and public officials; deliberately deceiving voters about Biden’s cognitive state will only decrease journalists’ and blog hosts’ credibility.
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“I was an assistant district attorney for 16 years, and my office had numerous cases that we declined to prosecute on these same grounds.”
It is shocking to read from someone who claims to have been an assistant district attorney for 16 years who just confessed that he did what Hur did and substituted his own judgement for that of trained psychiatrists and mental health professionals and “on numerous occasions” let defendants walk based entirely on his own judgement as a lawyer, just like Hur did. Did you personally certify to the court that you did what Hu did and knew in your heart that the defendants were too incompetent to stand trial and you had no need to consult with a psychiatrist?
What city did you work for where ADAs can unilaterally decline top press charges on an obviously guilty defendant based on their own feelings that an obviously guilty man was too incompetent to stand trial?
You might want to correct yourself since your post certainly suggests you approve of ADAs deciding who is competent and who isn’t and you as an ADA were making those decisions without any help from mental health professionals just like Hur did.
I certainly hope not.
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You show that you don’t know how prosecutorial discretion works in EVERY office. Legal ethics forbid bringing charges if in your professional judgment there is a low probability of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crimes. For almost all crimes, to prove guilt requires proving criminal intent. If the defendant was cognitively impaired at the time the crime was committed, or if he is too impaired to stand trial at the current time, then you don’t take the case to trial. You don’t always need a professional medical decision to draw a conclusion about how a jury would reach a verdict.
There’s an easy way to determine Biden’s mental condition at the time he was interviewed by the Special Counsel. That interview was definitely recorded, as all are these days. Release the video to the public. If that video verifies what the Special Counsel claims, you can bet your life that Biden will resist public disclosure of the video interview.
Charging decisions in my office for cases like this were always made by the elected DA, not by assistants.
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I would not hold my breath waiting for the video to be released. The House GOP won’t even release transcripts of depositions in their chase to accuse Hunter Biden of inducing his father to commit acts deserving of impeachment. Why? Because there’s no support in them for the accusations they make.
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Tom Dillon
Did Hur present any evidence that Biden willfully took the documents marked classified. Knew that classified documents were among other documents packed by others. . Ever reviewed the documents or discussed them with others. In this report or was it just a character assassination. In an unsubstantiated report.
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Yes. He did present such evidence. Biden told his ghostwriter that he had found classified documents in his home. And the ghostwriter wanted nothing to do with them. As well, Biden himself used his own notebooks, which were classified, to prepare a book with the title Promise Me, Dad. These notebooks were among the materials turned over by Biden to the National Archives and/or the FBI.
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Bob,
Sorry, but I think I will read Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel and ignore your Hur-influenced analysis. Perhaps if you read Marcy Wheeler, you’d realize how much you are accepting a false right wing narrative and presenting it as if it had sound legal reasoning and strong evidence to support it.
Do you see Mike Pence being charged for possessing classified documents?
Contacting the government and telling then you realized you had some documents with (low) classified markings on them isn’t something that is charged as a crime. Marcy Wheeler, unlike you, analyzes the evidence with a clear eye. And anyone who follows her knows that she never makes knee jerk defenses of Democrats, nor does she substitute political arguments for sound legal thinking, which I see too frequently here.
I came across Marcy Wheeler when the NYT informed me in a dozen or 100 articles that John Durham had a slam dunk case prosecuting a Democratic lawyer who definitely committed serious crimes. I didn’t need to see any evidence or legal argument because the NYT told me that there was copious unimpeachable evidence and that was good enough for me. If a right wing prosecutor and the NYT tell me there is tons of evidence of a Democrat’s guilt, that was good enough for me. If a NYT reporter amplifies and legitimizes a Republican prosecutor’s statements without needing to see the evidence and legal reasoning behind those statements, why would I need to see that before I completely embraced their narrative that the Democrat did something wrong.
Marcy Wheeler checks. She analyzes. She reads the actual legal rational and looks at the evidence that Republican special prosecutors cite to support their charges against Democrats. She kept saying that Durham had no evidence against the Democratic lawyer and she was 100% correct. The jury quickly voted not guilty. It was only AFTER the not guilty vote that the NYT journalists actually started acknowledging that the so-called “evidence they accepted at face value was not evidence at all.
The Robert Hur report is no different. Folks like you accept that there is something there based on reading someone else telling you there is something there. Marcy Wheeler looks at the prosecutors’ own evidence and even before hearing any defense arguments she can see the evidence is ridiculously sketchy and the legal arguments cited by Republican special prosecutors riddled with errors. She is almost always right, but the reason she is trustworthy and credible is because whenever she is mistaken, she always acknowledges it.
But Robert Hur did something sneaky – he knows he’d lose at trial because like in Durham’s “slam dunk” prosecution, Hur actually has no real evidence of Biden wrongdoing. None. You keep saying he does based on what? Not an analysis of the evidence, that’s for sure. If you read Marcy Wheeler you’d know the evidence that would lead to a middle aged person IN PEAK COGNITIVE CONDITION to be charged for doing what Biden did is non-existent.
But Hur learned a lesson from Durham and isn’t charging a crime where it would be obvious that no real evidence of Biden wrong-doing exists, Hur is depending on willing idiots to push the narrative that Biden IS guilty, but only because of his cognitive challenges is Hur not charging this law-breaking elderly and cognitively suffering president with a crime.
And I’ve seen you post multiple times reinforcing this false narrative of Hur’s instead of simply accepting as Marcy Wheeler does that it is a total hit job. Marcy doesn’t go looking for some irrelevant grain of truth to amplify to help amplify the hit job. “Biden is old” “Biden forgot something”. “But her emails”.
I don’t expect you or anyone else to trust me, some random stranger on the internet.
I am asking you to start sourcing your opinions with CREDIBLE legal journalists like Marcy Wheeler instead of buying into the evidence-free narratives the right wing uses to smear Democrats.
I promise you that Marcy Wheeler is far more trustworthy than whatever source has convinced you to amplify some of the fact-free narratives in the Hur report.
Do what Marcy Wheeler does. Tell the truth, even when the truth is unfavorable to Democrats. But don’t accept a false narrative BECAUSE it is unfavorable to Biden. It doesn’t make you unbiased.
Marcy Wheeler is unbiased. Or do be more precise, she is strongly biased toward truth, evidence, and providing very convincing argument for her view. She is like Diane Ravitch, always willing to consider evidence that contradicts her beliefs.
Although Marcy Wheeler does write very long and detailed posts at Empty Wheel, so perhaps that would discredit her in your eyes. Why would you want to read her very long legal arguments explaining why there is no credible evidence that Biden committed a chargeable crime, when you can just read a snarky reply saying she’s far too wordy and should shut up?
Why not amplify the truth – that there is nothing in the Hur report that can accurately be described as being credible evidence of Biden’s wrongdoing? I know this because I read Marcy Wheeler. You seem to believe differently based on what? Your own legal analysis of the evidence and the appropriate laws?
Hopefully there are some other folks on here who aren’t afraid of very long and detailed analyses of the evidence and will read Marcy Wheeler. Searching for the truth isn’t about snarky quick remarks. It is a detailed analysis of the evidence and applicable laws.
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NYC,
Read the report.
I plan to review it on Sunday.
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Bob says: “He did present such evidence. Biden told his ghostwriter that he had found classified documents in his home. And the ghostwriter wanted nothing to do with them. As well, Biden himself used his own notebooks, which were classified, to prepare a book with the title Promise Me, Dad.”
Marcy Wheeler uses sound legal argument and evidence to impeach Bob’s false narrative above.
I believe Marcy Wheeler, not Bob. Only one of them has a long history of sound legal analysis and readily admitting when they are wrong.
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TED: I ordered a replacement part for the sprinkler, but it has not arrived yet.
CAROL: There’s a package from Amazon on the porch.
TED: No it isn’t. I asked Jonie about this a bit ago. She said it hadn’t arrived.
CAROL: Ted, I just came in. I saw the package myself. It’s there. It’s on the porch. I just told you that. I would have brought it in myself, but my arms were full of grocery bags.
TED: Who am I going to believe, you, or Jonie’s expert analysis? She orders from Amazon all the time. Only one of these has a long history of sound analysis and readily admitting when she is wrong.
Yeah, NYC. That makes sense. ROFL.
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Diane,
My reading a report that I have no ability to judge is meaningless. That’s what the NYT reporters did and accepted the “facts” at face value even though the report was wildly misleading.
It’s like me trying to read a scientific study and deciding whether the evidence presented supports the conclusions in the study. I go to a brilliant relative who is a scientist who gives me thoughtful critiques supporting or questioning scientific reasons using evidence. That relative doesn’t tell me what to think. They explain why the evidence is strong or not strong enough to support the conclusions. I can make my own judgement only after having that expert knowledge.
You should read Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel.net because she has the knowledge to evaluate reports like Hur’s. And she is has been proven correct in the past.
Her analysis of the Hur report is sound and she supports it with clear evidence. That’s why I trust it. I can weigh her legal arguments and look at the evidence she makes a point of detailing for her readers, and then decide whether her views have merit. They nearly always they do.
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^^^ https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/09/robert-hurs-box-checking/
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Diane, Marcy Wheeler reminds me of you because you are both eminently fair and dedicated to truth and honesty. Even on the rare occasions we disagree, I always respect how you both carefully back up your opinions with absolutely truthful argument. Neither of you is there is propagandize for one side. You are there to enlighten with truth. Thank you.
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Diane,
Another strong endorsement for Marcy Wheeler’s long and careful analysis of the evidence and legal citations versus Bob’s analysis based on “I read the report”:
Norman Ornstein@NormOrnstein
9:22pm, Feb. 9, 2024
“This is a devastating and thorough debunking of Hur’s report, making clear that it is utterly dishonest, distorted beyond belief. To all those legal analysts on CNN and elsewhere, who bought it at face value, shame.”
Then Ornstein links to Marcy Wheeler’s post: “Robert Hur’s Box-Checking”
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Bob Shepherd
It is a prosecutors Job to bring cases to trial. Not to make a Judgement on someones mental capabilities on the basis of a what he thinks should be easy to recall. He is not a Geriatric Specialist.
He did not have a winnable case on the merits. Or for sure he would have recommended it. The proof that he would have recommended it, is in the fact that he engaged in what he had to know was the most effective political hit Job he could possibly make. Playing into a central Republican talking point. In fact if he didn’t know, Hur should seek out a cognitive neurologist.
As for the sympathetic jury argument. Is he asserting that he would not be able to prove to a jury that Biden was not lucid enough in 2017 to know that he had taken classified documents? And then let the Judge take in mitigating factors in sentencing.
If Comey had an ethical lapse when he sacked Clinton. At least he was trying to save an institution from blackmail. I suspect the institution Hur sought to protect was his ass from the fascist thug Republican party. And I suspect he took pleasure in doing so.
Another thing I can thank Obama (and Biden) for, Garland! When will Democrats ever learn ? Appeasing Republicans is like signing the Munich agreement.
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“Appeasing Republicans is like signing the Munich agreement.”
A memorable statement!!
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It looks to me worse than simple appeasement.
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“Not to make a Judgement on someone’s mental capabilities on the basis of a what he thinks should be easy to recall. He is not a Geriatric Specialist.”
I agree, and I have said this here many times. The report was a hit job/hatchet job. Way beyond the bounds.
What I have relayed is the argument that Hur makes. It is not MY argument. He argues that Biden’s memory failures are such that the jury could conclude that he had no intention of violate the law, and the ability to prove intention is necessary for a successful prosecution. That’s what Hur argues. Not me. My position, as I have said numerous times, is that he could simply have said that there was insufficient evidence to prove intent. And, of course, Garland could have redacted the personal attacks on Biden’s acuity.
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Bob, agreed. Hur should have written a 30-page report describing the facts. Garland should have redacted Hur’s personal observations, which surely don’t meet the DOJ standards.
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@Diane — Sorry, but this reminds me of writing detentions or discipline referrals for students. I had this discussion with my admin, “Rick, guess what I get to do today? I get to take all these “legal documents” back to the teachers and explain to the teachers (not all) they needed to cite the facts and not their opinion — it is a legal document.” She loathed spending her day having the discussion “…you can’t say the student is an idiot and should be put in juvenile hall…just the facts.” I saw how many referrals were highly opinionated. Hur’s job was to document his factual findings. It reminds me of the “One Minute Manager” by Kenneth Blanchard where he stated never mix praising with reprimand. And, the infamous teacher evaluation discussion, “…you are great…this is wonderful…but…”
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I was a prosecutor for 15 years, so I think I know at least a little about the job.
And a prosecutor’s first job is to do justice. It is not to trash a potential defendant in self-serving statements. A statement that a prosecution is declined because its chances of success are slim at best is all that’s needed.
It is manifestly NOT to trash a defendant he/she is declining to charge. It is not to call a defendant “guilty but too sympathetic”, which is what Hur was trying to communicate.
A prosecutor violates legal ethics by announcing a declination to charge while simultaneously implying the defendant is actually guilty. Unlike defense attorneys, prosecutors are limited in what they say. I never had a problem with that.
Hur should be disciplined for his rank partisanship and free-ranging statements that are designed only to humiliate a defendant he knows he could never convict.
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Thank you, JSR, for your informed opinion.
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Jsrtheta,
Thanks for your informed comment. As I read the report, I was shocked by the injection of derogatory and subjective statements. Surely they do not meet the DOJ’s standards and should have been removed.
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There is no excuse for it. A declination should be succinct. If you’re not charging, you have no reason to editorialize overmuch. Gratuitous grumbling like this report is essentially juvenile.
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Bob Shepherd
Understood Bob. As Krugman and others have pointed out. In conversations with Biden he is absolutely on top of his game and displays thorough understanding of complex subjects. He has been a gaff machine for his entire career.
Sorry I can’t tell you the dates most of my relatives died. Most the year, I have to think about. But I will be hoping for a Nobel Prize soon.
“When the news broke about the special counsel’s hit job — his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden’s memory — I found myself thinking about my mother. What year did she die? It turned out that I didn’t know offhand; I knew that it was after I moved from Princeton to CUNY, because I was regularly commuting out to New Jersey to see her, but before the pandemic. I actually had to look into my records to confirm that she died in 2017.
I’ll bet that many readers are similarly vague about the dates of major life events. You remember the circumstances but not necessarily the precise year. And whatever you think of me, I’m pretty sure I don’t write or sound like an old man” Paul Krugman
Of course I have to disagree about the way he sounds. He should stick to the print media.
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nycpsp– Thank you for the referral to Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel.net. I did not find her writeup on this report to be at all too lengthy/ detailed (as you suggest in some of your descriptions of her reporting). And bonus: her commenters seem to be highly educated and intelligent, adding much to the discussion. There are so many current news issues that have me googling for good legal analysis to correct or amplify the shallow coverage and narrative spin at MSM (and NPR!) articles. Glad to have a regular source for this.
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Tom Dillon,
What was “clearly guilty” of doing?
I have not read the Hur report, but from media reports, the documents did not include “top secret” or “highly classified” material. Apparently, they did not include sensitive stuff that endangered our national security and our allies.
If you have read the 388-page report, please let us know whether there were any top/secret documents that Biden kept. And please tell us what criminal charges he should face.
Am I hyper-partisan? To the same degree as Yale historian Timothy Snyder, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, Boston University historian Heather Cox Richardson, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, and the 25 eminent historians who signed an amici brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Colorado’s decision to disqualify Trump as a candidate because he swore an oath to the Constitution and engaged in a violent attempt to overthrow the orderly transfer as spelled out in the Constitution.
I am happy to be in that company.
Under no circumstances would I vote for a man who leads a cult of white supremacists, who tried and failed to lead a coup and I erthow our Constitution and our democracy, who has demonstrated his total unfitness for the Presidency.
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From today’s New York Times:
In part because of Mr. Biden’s memory, Mr. Hur declined to recommend charging the president for what the report described as willful retention of national security secrets, including some documents shared by the president that implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
“It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his 80s — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” Mr. Hur wrote.
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Were any of those documents marked “top secret” or “classified”? You don’t know.
Biden said they were his personal notes taken when he met with Obama.
Trump took documents that had the highest level of classification. Documents that if shared, threatened our national security.
I don’t see any reference to such documents in Biden’s possession.
Did you watch the Pro Publica interview with Biden, conducted 10 days before he met with Hur. I didn’t see any sign of incapacity. Watch the interview.
Would you prefer to see the presidency won by an elderly man with a faulty memory who reveres the Constitution or an elderly man who attempted to stage a coup to stay in power?
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“It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his 80s…”
There’s a tell. Biden is 81; not “well into his 80’s”.
Also, the NYT with their courtier journalism has lost much credibility as to a clear-eye view of the dangers we face.
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Ms. Ravitch,
You show once again why many people now regard you as blindly partisan. The Special Counsel explicitly says that Biden illegally took classified documents into his possession. The level of classificiation does not determine the legality of such actions. I agree that Trump is a unique danger, but I won’t compromise my integrity by denying the obvious truth about Biden’s illegal acts and his cognitive decline.
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Biden says his own personal notes were considered classified. That is not equivalent to bringing home a top-secret document that explains the Pentagon’s plans to bomb Iran.
I am certainly anti-Trump. If you want to call it “blind” to oppose a former President who refused to accept his loss and tried to stage a violent coup, so be it. Better to be blind than part of the cult of white supremacy.
Stop your insults to me. The first rule of this blog is you don’t insult your host. If you were a regular reader, you would know that.
You would also know that I worked in the sub-cabinet of President George H.W. Bush and served as Assistant Secretary of Education to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander.
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Tom, I have never seen you on this blog before. I’ve been writing it since 2012. I was harshly critical of the education policies of Obama and Duncan. So much for my blind partisanship. Who are the “many people” who lament my sins in supporting Biden?
Why did you decide to join our conversation today?
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The documents did include Top Secret material. There weren’t a lot of them, and they were documents related to Biden’s tenure in various positions, some of which he used as reference for writing a book.
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I read the report. It does say that some of the documents were Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI). SCI is a classification for documents that are sensitive because they might reveal sources and methods.
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“I read the report”??!!!
You read a biased Republican prosecutor’s hit job report and are citing it as if it it comes from such an unimpeachable source that any right-thinking unbiased person should accept at face value that it contains credible evidence of wrongdoing. That’s what is so scary to me.
A report that Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel takes down point by point citing laws, the actual evidence (and not some out of context snippets in a hit job report).
Marcy Wheeler writes very long posts and people who prefer snarky replies and insults to having to read through evidence and legal precedent will unfortunately find it easier to substitute their own judgement based on a hit job report instead.
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NYC,
Yes, you should read the report.
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Much better analysis than “I read the report”
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Tom,
Thank you for FINALLY telling the truth and admitting that you would only decline to charge someone because you already know that no jury would convict a man without evidence. Period.
So that begs the question of why you admitted to prosecutorial malfeasance in your earlier comment.
As you well know, no prosecutor is allowed to decide that DESPITE a huge weight of evidence that a defendant is guilty, they have unilaterally decided without consulting any psychological expert that they will let the defendant walk because the prosecutor – and not a mental health professional – decided that the defendant is cognitively impaired.
Only a cognitively impaired – or a corrupt – prosecutor would make personal assessments about the mental state of a likely GUILTY client and then let that likely guilty defendant walk free. It is shocking that you claimed that as a prosecutor you regularly let likely guilty defendants walk based only on your own feelings, because in your office, it is prosecutors and not mental health experts who make decisions about guilty folks mental state.
It is absurd you even tried that as it made you look very corrupt, Tom.
So how about you stop saying Hur didn’t charge a GUILTY man because prosecutors like you and Hur regularly let guilty folks walk based on their personal assessments of the defendants’ mental states. It just makes you look bad.
If a prosecutor does have evidence that a crime was committed and decides WITHOUT A PSYCHIATRIST OR MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION that he won’t charge the person who committed a crime, his bank accounts would be searched for a bribe. What office do you work in where prosecutors make decisions about defendants’ mental health status on their own – no mental health experts needed — and don’t charge clients when there is evidence to convict them?
I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you would NEVER depend on your own beliefs about a defendant’s mental state to let him walk free if you ever had real evidence that he was guilty. You would call in a professional.
Just admit that the reason Biden wasn’t charged was because there was no evidence of his guilt. If Hur actually thought Biden was guilty, but had doubts about his cognitive ability, he would have called in a mental health professional to evaluate him. I find it suspect that you wanted us to believe that isn’t what happens in your office, because guilty folks in your office can walk free as incapacitated solely on the word of a lawyer.
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We have long known that Biden took home documents. Some were classified. Biden said they were his own notes.
I have not seen evidence that Biden withheld top secret or highly classified documents, or those that are so sensitive that they may be read only in a safe room.
Trump was charged because he stubbornly refused to return the highly sensitive documents he absconded with. He claimed he returned them. He claimed they were his property. The FBI did not want to raid Mar-a-Lago. They pleaded with him to return the documents. He refused. They raided his property and found hundreds of top-secret documents.
Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon is now sitting on the case, refusing to move it forward in hopes Trump wins and throws out the charges against him. He’s the first person ever to run for president in order to escape trial and legal jeopardy.
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If he gets away with his plan to pardon himself, we will be the laughing stock of the world.
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When Trump addressed the United Nations, the delegates did, in fact, laugh at him. Not surprising. He is a vile and ignorant jackass.
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Diane, some of the documents that Biden had were his own notebooks, but some of those were classified Top Secret because they contained information at that level of sensitivity.
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Hmm. Bob, I have not read the report. I’m glad that you did. Biden said last night that none of the documents were marked red, as are those at the highest level of classification. Trump had a plenitude of those red folders and liked to show them to guests to price what a big man he was.
None of the documents held by Biden are current; they would have ended in December 2016 or Jan 2017.
Were there documents of high sensitivity that were not his personal notebooks?
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Answer to the last question, yes.
From the report. I’ve put brackets around my additions for clarity:
Marked classified documents about Afghanistan. These documents from fall 2009 have classification markings up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level. They were found in a box in Mr. Biden’s Delaware garage that contained other materials of great personal significance to him and that he appears to have personally used and accessed. p. 3
Top Secret and Secret information must be kept in a storage container approved by the General Services Administration or an approved and locked storage area.20 Information that is even more sensitive-called Sensitive Compartmented Information and sometimes referred to as “codeword” information-must be stored in an accredited Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF. p. 17
[The report tells of Top Secret and other classified documents found among the Biden papers at the University of Delaware. These were not properly stored and should have been turned over to the National Archives.]
[In the den of Biden’s Delaware home, there was a locked file cabinet. FBI agents found there] “two documents with classification markings: (1) a threepage PowerPoint presentation marked as “Secret//NOFORN//Pre-decisional” dated May 22, 2013, relating to Afghanistan; and (2) a three-page memorandum labeled “TS/SCI”-shorthand for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information-dated November 1, 2013, relating to Iraq.” p. 25
In 2010, the Executive Secretary team raised concerns about the number of classified briefing books that Mr. Eiden had not returned, and the fact that, even when they were returned, some of the content was missing. 118 These concerns were raised with Hogan as well as Mr. Biden’s personal aide and military aides. E-mails indicate that the Executive Secretary team alerted Hogan to the issue at least in June 2010, when nearly thirty of the classified briefing books from the first six months of 2010 were outstanding, and in August 2010, when Mr. Eiden failed to return Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information (also referred to as “codeword”) contents of a classified briefing book that he had received during a trip to the Hamptons, in New York. 119 We were unable to determine whether these materials were ever recovered, although they were likely found and disposed of by military aides or naval enlisted aides. p.45
And so on . The full report details other instances of improper possession and handling of Top Secret and SCI documents.
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My answer is in moderation.
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Yes. See my answer in moderation.
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Bob,
Your answer is why “I read the report” is problematic if you have little legal knowledge to contextualize what you read.
(CNN News) “CNN first reported that a lawyer for Pence found last week about a dozen documents marked as classified at the former vice president’s home. The former vice president had directed his lawyer, Matt Morgan, who has experience handling classified material, to conduct the search.
The discovery came after Pence had repeatedly said he did not have any classified documents in his possession. ”
(NBC News) “Former Vice President Mike Pence will not be charged in the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s national security division informed Pence’s attorney that it had closed its investigation and that based on the “results” of that probe, no charges will be filed against the former vice president. Pence was interviewed as part of the DOJ’s investigation, along with several aides, according to a source familiar with the matter.”
Bob, why are you so quick to accept the narrative by Hur that you “read in a report”, and so quick to dismiss Marcy Wheeler as worthless?
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Because the Hur report did NOT do what Wheeler implies that it did. It did NOT say that there was a case to be made that Biden intentionally kept the material. In fact, it says the opposite. ROFL. How many times to I have to explain this to you?
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I’ll let jsrtheta speak for me, Bob
jsrtheta
February 10, 2024 at 4:31 pm
“I was a prosecutor for 15 years, so I think I know at least a little about the job.
And a prosecutor’s first job is to do justice. It is not to trash a potential defendant in self-serving statements. A statement that a prosecution is declined because its chances of success are slim at best is all that’s needed.
It is manifestly NOT to trash a defendant he/she is declining to charge. It is not to call a defendant “guilty but too sympathetic”, which is what Hur was trying to communicate.
A prosecutor violates legal ethics by announcing a declination to charge while simultaneously implying the defendant is actually guilty. Unlike defense attorneys, prosecutors are limited in what they say. I never had a problem with that.
Hur should be disciplined for his rank partisanship and free-ranging statements that are designed only to humiliate a defendant he knows he could never convict.”
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It tells you how utterly devoid of credibility the entire Republican federal prosecutor community has become that Hur is apparently the BEST of any Republican federal prosecutor out there. I guess by Republican standards, we are supposed to be impressed that Hur didn’t say that Biden ran a pedophile ring out of the Oval Office. By the low bar the Republicans are held to, we are supposed to be grateful he only drew completely unwarranted evidence-free conclusions to bash Biden and ignored the clear truth – supported by clear and convincing evidence, that Biden returned classified material when he realized that he had taken it, while Trump refused to do so.
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John Harwood of ProPublica responded to Hur’s report by posting this video of an interview with Biden ten days before the president was interviewed by Hur, which incidentally occurred as Biden weighed a response to the Hamas attacks on Israel. Watch and make your own judgement about Biden’s mental acuity.
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Apologies for the double posting. WordPress has a vendetta against me. Call it a conspiracy, if you must.
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Glad to find this 10/1/23 interview again, saves hunting for it in these long sub-threads! I’m not sure if you mentioned on first posting: Hur interviewed Biden for 5 hrs total in meetings held Oct 8th & 9th. Hello, Hamas attack Oct 7th, anybody? Any president of any age would have been up round the clock, not to mention distracted.
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Did anyone from DOJ INTERVIEW TRUMP?
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Interesting piece, Diane. Thanks for sharing it.
<
div>Cali Cole
Sent from my iPad
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div dir=”ltr”>
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blockquote type=”cite”>
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Why do Democrats keep putting Republicans with presumed impartiality in charge and expect a different outcome? Perhaps Democrats want to give the appearance of not being partisan. However, when the GOP enters the picture, they use the opportunity to undermine them. So-called Republicans are political animals regardless of so-called professionalism or ethics. Such is the case with James Comey, who was supposed the ultimate professional, and Robert K, Hur. We also still have Louis DeJoy in charge of USPS, a man whose goal is to neutralize the USPS and privatize it.
Biden just came to the conclusion that he is at war with the GOP and the mainstream media. He has tried so hard to be impartial and bring both sides together, but nobody can compromise with radical extremists, not even reasonable Joe Biden.
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FYI-https://robertreich.substack.com/p/bidens-brain-trumps-brain?fbclid=IwAR1ONErWx7nmBCqGH7suO6N72YRaxAweZKGrTN55Rl12IwZDrjmDdImHbGQ
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Here’s a guy with cognitive issues speaking, YESTERDAY:
JABBA THE TRUMP (speaking to reporters in West Palm Beach): They kept saying about what I said right after . . . [inaudible] an insurrection caused by Nancy Pelosi. This was in insurrection—if it was an insurrection—there were no guns, there were no anything, except for the fact that they shot Ashley Babbit . . . . But there were no guns. There were no anything.
In this persons twisted head, January 6th was somehow caused by Nancy Pelosi. Too weird.
And, of course, just before the march on the Capital, Trump said to his security detail, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags (metal detectors) away. Let my people in, they can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.” And, though most of the insurrectionist mob was allowed to leave, many of those arrested did, in fact, have weapons, and Trump knows this.
Gosh, Trump lying. What a surprise.
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Bob, as I heard, “…it wasn’t an insurrection, but a riot…” Therefore what I thought I knew…and “one” can be charged, but not our “client.” But then again, I am an old dude, so I must not understand anymore, nor see well, nor hear well…
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Not sure what you are saying. The inaudible part of those comments to the press was very short (it was drowned out by a plane taking off).
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Oh, sorry. I was referring to the semantics of the SCOTUS. I thought I understood what insurrection, office, and whatnot, but apparently I am too ignorant.
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It seems that both of our likely presidential candidates have issues that are common among senior citizens. I turn 70 in a few months. I retired, not because I was senile, but because I had for sure lost a few steps in trying to keep up with all the details of my job. I can’t imagine doing it at 77 (Trump) or at 81 (Biden). Hur’s comments crossed the line, obviously. But it may be because of implicit bias or ageism in general rather than politics. Either way, the reaction to his report should have been expected – and it is not helpful. The fact that Biden returned everything immediately should have been the core issue.
I would really appreciate it if senior leaders in both parties do more to nurture talent in younger generations. The new minority leader in the house is a great example of how this can work. Can’t say the same for the majority, but the problems in the majority relate back to problems with those who are older.
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We have two candidates who are elderly men.
One is committed to improving the conditions of life for those who are not at the top of the economic ladder. He has long experience in Congress and reveres the Constitution.
The other is a former president who tried to inspire a coup so he could stay in power. He lied about his loss of the election of 2020 for more than three years, although his closest advisors told him he lost. He pressured state officials to change votes so he could win but they didn’t. He urged a mob to storm the Capitol to stop the certification of the vote. He never admitted that he lost, fair and square. In private life, he was known as a con man; example, Trump University, which cheated widows and veterans and was required by the courts to pay $25 million to defrauded students.
The choice between them is clear.
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Also, we should not expect Trump to go quietly away when he loses his bid for re-election to the presidency this time. Why would he when it might mean living out his days in prison?
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I have no problem making that choice. But too many who are not on top of politics will just see two aging white men and stay home.
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Too much is at stake to stay home or vote third party. Not just abortion, not just vouchers, not just the environment, not just the existence of a civil service, not just civil rights, but our democracy. Trump has said he will use the Justice Departmebt to impose his will. Do we want to see federal agents locking up Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Adam Schiff and anyone else who stood in Trump’s way? Do we really want to withdraw from NATO and throw in our lot with Putin?
When a demagogue tells you what he’s going to do, believe him.
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In accordance with the
traditions of concocted notoriety,
the din of the appointed:
“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.”
begs for more din:
“This is beyond devastating,” said another Democratic
operative, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk
candidly about Biden’s shortcomings.
“It confirms every doubt and concern that voters have.
If the only reason they didn’t charge him is because
he’s too old to be charged,
then how can he be president of the United States?”
Placing faith in the din of concocted notoriety
quacks like placing faith in electoral saviors.
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That was truly nasty because he didn’t charge Biden because he had no evidence Biden had committed an intentional crime and he immediately returned all classified material!
This is why what Hur did should be grounds for him to be legally sanctioned with the harshest punishment.
It is contrary to all rules for a prosecutor to claim – without an ounce of evidence or with an examination by a psychiatrist or psychologist that a person is guilty crimes but they aren’t being charged because the prosecutor alone has decided that the criminal isn’t competent to stand trial.
It’s so unethical as to be shocking.
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You can shriek all you want, but what Mr. Hur did was not only ethical, but it was REQUIRED. He had to submit a report to the Attorney General; Merrick Garland made the decision to disclose the report to the public, NOT Mr. Hur. Here’s a longtime federal prosecutor who knows the law.
“Hur was required by regulation to explain his rationale for charging decisions in a “confidential report.” (See Rule 600.8[c] of the Special Counsel Regs, Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations.) It is then up to the attorney general to decide whether to release all or part of the report to the public. (See Rule 600.9[c].)”
The link below is a technical explanation of this point; it is not a Left vs. Right issue.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/on-hur-report-democrats-shoot-at-the-wrong-target/
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Tom Dillon,
Before you lash out at me and others who criticize Hur and defend Biden, watch this interview, which was conducted by ProPublica only 10 days before the Hur interview.
Oh, Tom, I can’t remember. Did Trump sit for a five-hour interview with Jack Smith? A one-hour interview? Any interview?
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Um, consider your source – The National Review?
Of course Hur needed to create a report – that was his charge. But it’s unprofessional at best that he’s thrown in these gratuitous editorial charges. The purpose was to detract from the fact that Biden did nothing wrong.
Remember “just the facts, ma’am”?
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I knew that someone would attack the source of the quotes I provided. If you actually read National Review – you don’t – you would know that they have published hundreds of essays that strongly criticize Trump. Next time make an effort to analyze what the writer said.
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Have you watched the interview of Biden filmed 10 days before he met with Hur? Can you explain why you appeared here for the first time to insult me and defend Hur’s slurs? Do you think Biden would get a fair shake from a Trump-Sessions appointee who belongs to the rightwing Federalist Society?
This mess is indication of Merrick Garland’s spinelessness. As I said in the original article, why didn’t he appoint a career prosecutor with no political baggage?
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Tom quotes the National Review: “Hur was required by regulation to explain his rationale for charging decisions in a “confidential report.” (See Rule 600.8[c] of the Special Counsel Regs, Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations.)
Hur’s entire explanation comes down to Biden committed no crime because he voluntarily notified that he found low classified docs and returned them — the OPPOSITE of what Trump did.
Hur said he had no convincing evidence that any crime occurred.
But both Tom and Hur would rather admit to malfeasance than to state the obvious – that there was no convincing evidence that Biden did anything illegal.
Both Tom and Hur don’t want to admit that Biden did nothing illegal. So Tom makes the dishonest post that prosecutors like him regularly cite ONLY their own personal feelings about a guilty defendant’s serious cognitive issues (and not a mental health professional’s opinions) to “explain their rationale” for allowing a guilty defendant to walk free. Sure, that’s the ticket, Tom.
Tom’s trying so hard to convince us that when he was a prosecutor, he regularly chose to ignore all the clear cut evidence of a defendant committing a crime because like Hur, his “feelings” told him the defendant lacked cognitive ability. According to Tom, he regularly let guilty people go free based only on his gut feelings about a defendant’s cognition.
Sure, that’s the ticket, Tom. No need for forensic psychologists because prosecutors are taught to decline to charge defendants when there is copious evidence they committed crime – and they “explain their rationale” by citing their own personal feelings about the defendant’s cognitive abilities.
Sure, that’s the ticket, Tom.
Hur spent a year and he could find no convincing evidence that Biden did anything wrong. That’s why he didn’t charge Biden. But Tom and Hur both want us to believe that Biden’s questionable cognitive state was an important deciding factor.
In order to get us to believe the fact-free narrative that Biden’s questionable cognitive state was an important deciding factor, Tom and Hur want us to believe a laughable lie – that once prosecutors have collected copious evidence of a defendant’s guilt, they tell their bosses that they won’t be charging the defendant because they know in their heart that he is cognitively challenged. Sure, that’s the ticket. Their bosses are very impressed with their prosecutors’ expert diagnostic acumen when it comes to cognition. Sure, that’s the ticket.
If Hur had any evidence that Biden had committed a crime, he would have charged him. Tom’s lie about how he and other prosecutors are regularly given full discretion to decide with no mental health input whether a guilty defendant is too cognitively impaired to stand trial is something his bosses at the DA’s office should hear about. Still standing by that, Tom?
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Read the report, NYC. Hur does not say that Biden committed no crime. He says that it would be difficult to convince a jury that he committed a crime BECAUSE in order for it to be a crime to keep the classified documents it would require intent, and he cannot PROVE intent because there is another explanation that juries might latch onto–that Biden is an elderly man with a failing memory who forgot what he had and didn’t have. So, he is saying that the evidence to prove intent is not there because there is this other plausible explanation.
He also says that Biden’s willingness to turn over documents, submit to search, and be interviewed weighed into his decision.
Read the report. This will prevent you from saying things about the report that the report does not say.
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Washington Week pundits (including a lawyer) disagree with Tom. Two of them said, without contradiction, that the Hur remarks were gratuitous.
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Hur could have written that one could not prove intent because lapses of memory could explain the behavior and left it at that.
But he didn’t. He engaged in a hit job.. Did Garland hire him to do that? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Washington Week pundits likened the agism attacks against Biden to the attack against Hillary regarding e-mails.
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Diane Ravitch made precisely the same point, yesterday, I think. Hur is this election season’s Comey. Hey, what worked for Trump before might work for him again was probably the thought.
Years ago, a CEO of a company whose name I won’t mention told me about going to an economic conference. He said, “You know, Bob, I looked around that room and the though struck me. These are the people who really run America, this handful, right here, right now, in this room.
The long delay in bringing any prosecutions against Trump–delay that lasted unto a mighty uproar forced the AG’s hand–and now this hatched job by a right-wing prosecutor appointed by the AG give one pause.
Which candidate is going to allow the oligarchs to continue transferring wealth upward? Is stupid and ignorant enough to sign any Executive Order or legislation allowing them free rein to rape and pillage? Well, it’s not Biden. During the Trump maladministration, they got everything they wanted. Want to pollute the air with cancer-causing chemicals? Great. No probl. The water? Great again. And so on while Donnie was upstairs watching TV and eating cheeseburgers.
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Garland did not appoint a special prosecutor for Trump until the conclusion of the hearings if the J6 committee. Why?
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Now THAT is a question.
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I just read the Hur report. It’s dreadful reading. So repetitive.
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I know, right? He’s a TERRIBLE writer. He should hire you, Diane! ROFL.
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I wish you had been Hur’s editor.
You could have cut out the repetition. The report would have been half as long.
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Bob,
I have been reading the Hur report on my cellphone and my eyes are falling out?
Question: I thought he mentioned how many classified documents were found on Biden properties but now I can’t find it. Do you recall?
In Trump’s case, I think it was 300
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Reading through this thing was an onerous task, and I read it quickly. Parts of it I skimmed. There is a complete list of the documents in Appendix A. Fewer than in Trump’s case but more than were initially reported. Simply counting them would require judgment, as many are folders or notebooks full of numerous items that could each be referred to as a document.
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Thanks. It’s tedious reading.
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Tom Dillon– yes, and you should expect pushback when you claim the NR article is “technical… this is not a Left-Right issue,” then link to a source categorized by both Media Bias Fact Check and AllSides as 3/4 of the way between “right-center” and “right-extreme.”
I read the NR article. Its only “technical explanation” is that Hur’s was a confidential report which Garland’s decision made public, along with legal details on why that is harmful to the suspect and shouldn’t be done. However, the author immediately follows that statement up with the note that “since the 1970’s ushered in the era of special prosecutors in politically charged cases, it has been customary to publicly release the supposedly “confidential report.”
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The question that remains unanswered is why Garland did not strike out Hur’s subjective speculations. Surely both Garland and Hur knew they were a boon to the MAGA crowd. His speculations were not factual. They were his impressions.
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Ginny,
I don’t understand why Tom
Dillon dropped in out of nowhere, warned us we should take the Hur Report seriously, ridiculed me as “hyper partisan” (“many people say”), etc.
That was before I read the report. That was before others like Richardson and Wheeler had read the report.
I asked him why he decided to drop in, disparage me, etc. and he disappeared.
Maybe he will come back and explain.
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@Diane — It is beyond me for people to have the audacity to “drop in” insult the host, and whatnot. You told me when I first joined, “Rick, we have a feisty bunch, don’t always agree, but at the end of the day we all are respectful of each other.” I always tended to shy away from “saying what I wanted to say” because, well, it wasn’t good enough or no one would be interested. I regard you as a highly-intelligent person who always listens (to both sides of the argument) and then says, “Well, if you don’t like it here, go somewhere else.” I noticed your blog has had some interesting visitors recently. All I know is I have learned a lot for you and the blog family. Just some “art guy” trying to make the world a better place. And thinking, “How would I teach the kids?” Thank you. On another note, I always tried to get to the root of “Why?” This is an interesting read. https://slate.com/culture/2020/05/donald-trump-baseball-high-school-nyma.html
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Thank you, Rick Charvet.
I try to keep the conversation civil and as you can see, there are some kindergarten brawls, no matter how hard I try to stop them.
As you noticed, I do get some trolls who drop by.
We do have some wonderful regulars.
I don’t appreciate the few who drop in to tell me how awful I am.
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@Diane – It bothers me tremendously when they attack people, not concepts. And especially you the host.
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Rick, me too.
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@diane — on another note, I have been asked to be an advisor for one of my former 8th grade students (now a senior and moving onto college). He loves paleontology and his senior project is on the “fossil record and climate change.” Just asking, do you have any paleontologist colleagues who would be willing to answer questions to support his project? Just thought I would “ask an expert.” Thank you.
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@Diane — Speaking of reporting, here is our hope for the future. Excellent reporter and communicator. Great questions. Well thought-out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ckIbDIkB0
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“Bending over backwards” frequently results long term pain and discomfort…
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With regard to Bolsonaro, Brazil was under a military dictatorship until 1985, well within memory for most Brazilians. We silly Americans are far too complacent in contrast. We seem to think because of our historic democracy we will continue in the same path. The authoritarians in power fly below the radar of far too many, moving wealth and power upwards, into the hands of the few. Here on the blog, we are cognizant of this dynamic, because it’s been playing out for a quarter of a century now in our public schools.
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So well said, Christine!
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Here’s the Venezuela I was talking about. I learned about this leader last night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hynLl4MK9hk
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Whenever a member of the GOP is in a decision making role over a Democrat, the outcome generally undermines the Democrat. Professionals can also be partisan. Garland needs to get realistic about what is at stake.
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These ageist attacks on Biden are to be expected and will increase a thousand fold over the coming months. And, to be honest, Biden does look old in the close-up pictures of his face. Of course Trump is the real guy in mental decline plus a malevolent spirit and personality. Biden has done a good job as president and has worked hard to alleviate the pain and suffering of most Americans. Biden, who has suffered so much in his personal life, is a very empathetic and caring human being. The problem is that many Americans may not vote because they don’t care for Biden or Trump. The non-voters and the Electoral College could curse us with another Trump term. Biden gets my vote because the alternative is too disgusting to contemplate.
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His eyes look odd. I suspect that he has had “work” done and that it didn’t turn out particularly well. But Diane is right. We have a choice between two elderly men. One is a great statesman overseeing a booming economy. The other is a career criminal and conman and a Russian asset, as well as an adjudicated rapist and a seditionist. He’s also breathtakingly ignorant and breathtakingly stupid. This is a man who thought that stealth airplanes were actually invisible and that we should send astronauts to the sun and that a dementia screening was an IQ test. And he is a serial philanderer.
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Seems like a political hack job. That said, with public perception of Biden’s age, acuity, and overall approval so low, Dems clueless touting of how good the economy is doing despite so many Americans experiencing the economic insecurity of struggling to make ends meet, and anger over US support for Israel’s killing of innocent civilians, he remains a very risky choice to defeat Trumpism.
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Agreed, but we have no choice in the matter. Also, the border hysteria is driving some Latinos to Trump. strangely enough.
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Kerry had the manufactured Swift Boat issue — all lies designed to make someone who was Wounded several times in combat, look like a coward while the real coward was the 2nd Bush.
Hillary had Benghazi and the email issues, both blown way out of proportion by the GOP — both investigations found her not guilty of anything. But the email issue cast a lot of doubts when the investigation was started up again right before the 2016 election. A 2nd investigation that also found nothing wrong — announced too late.
Still, the Republicans used them like bullets and bombs to make her look bad.
Bill Clinton had investigations that went nowhere too until they accused him of having consensual sex in the Oval Office with an intern and he said it never happened, the lie that got him impeached in the House. The Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton for that. Compare that to Traitor Trump’s guilty rape verdict, guilty fraud verdict, his grab them by the ***** quote, too many accusations of rape to count, one by a girl who was 13 when that rape allegedly happened.
Most Republicans don’t care. Trump can do anything, even be found guilty in two different courts of rape and fraud. All Biden has to do to be attacked and condemned without a trial or evidence is to stutter.
Now President Biden is dealing with the Hunter Biden laptop manufactured scandal, that he’s too old (BS! So is Traitor Trump but no one on the right admits that), and now this set up (it can’t be anything else) to make him look like he has dementia. When the candidate with dementia and a host of other mental problems is Traitor Trump, who is also a malignant narcissist.
“As we grow older, we experience physiological changes that can cause glitches in brain functions we’ve always taken for granted. It takes longer to learn and recall information. We’re not as quick as we used to be. In fact, we may mistake this slowing of our mental processes for true memory loss.” — HelpGuide.org
I”n the first nationally representative study(link is external and opens in a new window) of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, Columbia University researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment. People with dementia and mild cognitive impairment are more likely to be older, have lower levels of education, and to be racialized as Black or Hispanic. Men and women have similar rates of dementia and mild cognitive impairment.” — Columbia University Irvine Medical Center
Trump has both, the history (his father) and the evidence of progressive dementia.
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I see the bias, and it could be because he is Republican. But perhaps, and I take no pleasure in saying this, Biden truly concerned Hur in terms of his incapacity to think clearly and cogently during the interview. It perhaps wasn’t his place to comment, and I know nothing of Hur, but if the situation were reversed and it was Trump who was interviewed by a Democrat leaning Special Council, I would hope his ringing alarm bells were about his fears of Trump and his lack of capacity and not his politics. I will support Biden in the election, but I have huge reservations about his capacity to hold office given his age and that he is only getting older quickly.
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If it was Trump instead of Biden, Hur would make silly and false pronouncements advantageous to Trump, like Trump’s doctor did. Worth noting, Barr, as head of DOJ would have appointed a Republican to report about a Republican. It’s only Democrats who bizarrely assume Republicans have any honor.
Sessions and Barr are authoritarian religionists who demand adherence to a patriarchal system. That’s why it is so dangerous to have Catholic organizations as the tax-funded 3rd largest employer in the nation, to have right wing Catholics dominating SCOTUS and, to have a presidential administration like Trump’s, with a dozen lawyers from Jones Day- men like Don McGahn. Pro Publica posted info showing Jones Day paid Mike Roman for research.
The best that can be said about a man who selects a GOP lawyer who clerked for Rehnquist and Kozinski is that he is a dangerous fool. The GOP is the party of dirty tricks.
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But her emails!
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But Hunter’s laptop! And CRT! And Space Lasers!
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Did you see this video of ProPublica interviewing Biden 10 days before Hur interviewed him (thanks, Christine Langhoff)?
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Good interview! When a person forgets a date, it is not a sign of dementia. Biden is aware, coherent, organized and logical. He is in command of his faculties.
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Share that video widely.
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You’re welcome, Diane. Everyone needs to do their part to address the disinformation miasma we’re struggling in. It’s not optional.
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Garland didn’t bend over backwards to be fair, he hired a partisan hack.
Mueller chose not to do his job because Republicans don’t care about democracy. William Barr, a Republican, capitalized on an opportunity to screw democracy via Mueller’s report.
If Trump is elected, with justice, the first two to meet his vengeance will be Barr and Sessions.
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We should take bets on who will be arrested first.
I bet Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
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The end of democracy, courtesy of the stupid GOP like George Will, David Brooks, Liz Cheney, Cassidy Hutchinson all of whom danced around the growing danger of fascism until it was too late.
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For a bit of information seldom seen about Merrick Garland, read this post from Sarah Kendzior. If Kendzior is a little bit too hair-on-fire for you, it’s understandable as it’s nearly too frightening to contemplate. I’ve read her work. Sadly, it often seems her crystal ball is uncannily accurate. Her PhD is in anthropology and her concentration is authoritarianism.
https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-state
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It’s good to remember, as well, that Garland was nominated by Barack Obama to the Supreme Court–Obama, who ran the illegal wars in the Middle East PRECISELY as George Bush, Jr. had; who bailed out the banks instead of the homeowners and so oversaw and massive transfer of home ownership away from homeowners and to vulture capitalist equity firms that gobbled them up; who gave the oligarchs free reign over U.S. education policy (He might as well have appointed Bill Gates and David Coleman co-Secretaries of Education.); who filled his cabinet and other staff with people from the financial industry; who oversaw 4.5 TRILLION DOLLARS OF WEALTH TRANSFER TO THE 1% via quantitative easing, which did zilch for ordinary folks (there were alternatives that would have helped the middle class). Obama’s picture should be next to DINO in the dictionary. Obama and Garland, two covert arch Republicans on TV playing, respectively, a Democrat and an Independent.
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My reply is in moderation. Corruption in the U.S. is a bipartisan affair.
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Christine
Thanks for the link.
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Trump’s everyday lapses and verbal emissions make Casey Stengel look like Winston Churchill.
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Elise Stefanik said today that she would not have done what Mike Pence did on January 6 (I.e., follow the Constitution).
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4458147-stefanik-says-she-would-not-have-done-what-mike-pence-did-on-jan-6/amp/
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We could do without her oral eruptions too. Stefanik in the running with Taylor-Greene for coveted stupidest Republican woman of the year trophy known as the Trumpy.
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Both are vying for the VP post. Imagine an incapacitated Trump. Imagine one these running the country.
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Yeah imagine all the “indickments” they could execute.
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Stefanik is not stupid. She is very smart. But she has no principles, no moral center. She is ambitious. She has hitched her star to Trump.
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So, I guess Greene gets the award.
I would not over-rate Stefanik’s smarts. She is calculating, soulless and ambitious (enormous political assets), but her judgment is misguided. Didn’t she jump in strong to back Jim Jordan to replace McCarthy? And why would Trump make this fellow New Yorker his VP. The ultimate comeuppance for Stefanik would be if she is voted out of office.
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We can only hope and pray that Stefanik is voted out.
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Stefanik said the federal government is persecuting Catholics. The only reason it’s not a stupid statement is that it’s aimed at getting the Catholic vote for trump.
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Whether the “documents” are one thing
or another, this much is certain:
If the “Intelligence Personnel” pretended
the electoral college transformed rump
into a trustworthy holder of national
vulnerabilities, we have pretend security.
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I think that Garland chose poorly when he selected Hur as Special Counsel for this investigation. A member of the Federalist Society and clerking for Rehnquist indicate Hur’s leanings.
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I think it’s worse. I think Garland knew precisely what he was doing in choosing this guy. I think he’s a certified member of the “Just Us” system.
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Any lawyer with Hur’s resume—Sessions, Trump, Federalist Society—is a well-vetted ultra rightwinger. Why did Garland choose him?
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Why, indeed. Well, I think it’s for the same reason that servant of the oligarchs Barack Obama initially nominated Garland to the Supreme Court and for the same reason that Garland sat on the various cases against Trump until public pressure mounted to such a point that he had to do something.
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I don’t think this garbage can be explained away by simply saying that Garland wants to appear impartial. I think he’s a right-winger.
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Biden has accomplished more good as president than Trump ever could.
Doesn’t sound feeble to me.
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Trump was always interested in accomplishing something for the wealthiest, figuring it would benefit him too. Like the tax bill of 2017, which cut taxes for corporations and the richest Americans.
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Hur is actually listed on the website of Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society as a “Contributor.”
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I wondered if Hur was involved in Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society. Thanks for answering the question.
Why did Merrick Garland choose him? Why did Merrick Garland release the report without redacting Hur’s personal and ad hominem comments?
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Hur did not make any personal and ad hominem comments. Hur provided the reason why he declined to bring charges against Biden for illegally taking documents home with him. Hur was required by law to write a report stating his reasons for charging or not charging. He declined to charge because Biden’s cognitive impairment made it very likely that a jury would conclude that Biden had no criminal intent – because Biden was too mentally gone to formulate such intent. That’s basic criminal law. Sorry if that doesn’t conform to your partisan desires.
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A man who was appointed by Jeff Sessions and Trump and belongs to the Federalist Society had no partisan intent? Tell me another!
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Jack Smith had no partisan leanings. He is a career prosecutor. He indicted Trump on multiple charges despite Trump’s obvious mental decline. And Trump not only brought home top-secret documents, he refused to return them when asked. He tried to conceal them. Unlike Biden, who immediately gave up whatever he had to the proper authorities.
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Hur did not aver that Biden was too far gone to have criminal intent. Instead, he said that the law requires intent but that a jury would probably say that it was not provable that Biden had intent to break the law because his actions could be explained as memory lapses. Having memory lapses is NOT being so cognitively impaired that one cannot formulate a plan of criminal action.
Have you read the report, Ms. Watson? You are attributing to Hur things he did not say.
But color me not surprised that Garland appointed Hur, who carried out this hit job a la Comey in 2016, given that Garland sat on charging Trump long enough to very likely run out the clock.
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Wendy-
All from the legal profession who know what special counsel reports are supposed to look like and who have weighed in about Hur’s report (except right wingers), apply the term “gratuitous” to it.
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Wendy and Bob,
You are both wrong, as Marcy Wheeler made clear in her close analysis of the evidence Hur cited and the law.
Hur had NO EVIDENCE to charge Biden with a crime because he had no evidence to charge Biden with a crime. Hur would have had no evidence if Biden was a 40- year old man at his very peak cognitive ability.
EVERY person in the world has “memory lapses”. It is absolutely false that prosecutors have evidence of a crime, but make their own decisions about “memory lapses” as to whether to charge. Bob, you have been propagandized.
The fact that Biden had the same “memory lapses” that he would have had at 40, and that we all have, was irrelevant. Hur included that so the media and folks here would jump in to re-start the narrative that Biden is a feeble old man whose memory loss is so PROBLEMATIC that a prosecutor who had clear evidence of wrongdoing will not charge him.
Not only are you amplifying the “Biden is cognitively impaired” innuendo, but you are also using it to amplify another lie — that Hur found evidence of Biden crimes and the ONLY reason Hur isn’t charging Biden is that Biden has serious elderly memory issues.
How easy it was for Hur to get both of you to bite. Biden did something wrong. And Biden is cognitively impaired. And the only reason Biden is getting a pass for his wrongdoing is because he is cognitively impaired.
The right wing thanks you very much for your help. “I read the report” indeed.
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Ben’s brother? Used to race chariots
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Hur today;
Gone tomorrow.
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Haaa!!! One hopes.
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Fred! Punster!
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Thanks, Diane. Fred, Punster, as in Fred Munster.
If you thought the above was bad, you will surely groan at the following:
If Mazi Pilip married Tom Suozzi, she’d be Mazi Suozzi.
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O my god!! Mazi Suozzi!
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Here, again, is Hur’s report:
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At the Daily Beast, Shan Wu has a good dissection of Hur’s report:
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Christine, I don’t understand the next to last sentence. The weight of historical precedents cuts against Trump, not Biden. Trump was given multiple chances to return the documents but didn’t.
“It would have been enough for Hur simply to say that the weight of historical precedent cuts against Biden in the absence of aggravating factors like being given multiple chances to return documents and obstructing justice.”
Maybe a word is missing.
He exonerated Biden.
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What if this is precisely what Garland wanted. What if he knew exactly what he was doing when appointing this guy
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Here’s another source:
Click to access report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf
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You can print this to your computer by clicking onto the little disc icon, up right.
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At the Daily Beast, Shan Wu has a good dissection of Hur’s report:
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“Biden sat for a five-hour interview[.]”
Five hours, huh. At what point during those five hours did Hur divine Biden was “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory?” From the get-go, within the first five minutes or so of interviewing Biden? After two hours? Three hours? Sometime during the final and fifth hour?
Hur’s “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” lacks creditability absent release of his five-hour interview of Biden on video to the public.
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Psychologically , bending over backwards is taken by the benighted Right as a craven and passive endeavor , letting them deploy their foaming at the mouth zealotry . They , to quote Vince Lombardi , view winning as the only thing .
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Marc, you are right. The Trump administration did not go out of its way to appoint Obama officials to prove their even-handed was. On anything. And if there is a second term, they won’t make that mistake.
Remember, Trump fired every single federal prosecutor in every state and replaced them with GOP loyalists.
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And, JD Vance welcomes the replacement of every civil service employee with the King’s men.
Thanks, Marc, for adding the comment.
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Comey redux
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I’d go take a look at Heather Cox Richardson’s post of tonight; she calls out Hur’s duplicity and the legacy media’s complacent regurgitation of his talking points.
He explained: “There are few secrets in [Washington], and if Joe Biden acted like Hur says, we would all know. Biden meets with dozens of people daily—staffers, members of Congress, CEOs, labor officials, foreign leaders, and military and intelligence officials…. If Biden was regularly misremembering obvious pieces of information or making other mistakes that suggested he was not up to the job, it would be in the press. Washington is not capable of keeping something like that secret.”
But the media ran not with the official takeaway of the investigation—that Biden had not committed a crime—or with a reflection on the accuracy or partisan reason for Hur’s commentary, but with Hur’s insinuations. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted that the New York Times today ran five front-page stories above the fold about the report and Biden’s memory.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-9-2024?publication_id=20533&post_id=141546464&isFreemail=true&r=1cllq
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Christine,
I posted Heather Cox Richardson this morning.
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Sorry, Diane, I missed it.
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Agree. THIS is where the Hur report goes way wrong. This is what makes it, as I have characterized it from the start, a hatchet job.
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Bob’s comment here is a good example of how our side gets propagandized to amplify right wing narratives that are simply not true:
“Read the report, NYC. Hur does not say that Biden committed no crime. He says that it would be difficult to convince a jury that he committed a crime BECAUSE in order for it to be a crime to keep the classified documents it would require intent, and he cannot PROVE intent because there is another explanation that juries might latch onto–that Biden is an elderly man with a failing memory who forgot what he had and didn’t have.”
Hur’s report shows that Biden did not commit any crime that would ever be prosecuted, which is why Mike Pence was not prosecuted. THAT is the true narrative. What Hur did was unprecedented, unethical and a hit job. Period. Why Bob keeps bringing up the two false innuendoes – and presenting them as CREDIBLE – that Hur’s report was specifically designed to get gullible folks to bring up is a mystery to me.
Bob keeps spreading the untrue narrative in which a VP realizing they have classified documents stored in their boxes, and then returning them when they are found is “criminal”. It is not. It is why Mike Pence and many other Republicans WERE NOT CHARGED. It had nothing to do with Mike Pence being a senile old man that the jury would sympathize with. It had nothing to do with the investigator finding something criminal and choosing not to act on it.
NO ONE remembers this one day story:
NBC News: June 2, 2023, 10:30 AM EDT
By Laura Jarrett
Former Vice President Mike Pence will not be charged in the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s national security division informed Pence’s attorney that it had closed its investigation and that based on the “results” of that probe, no charges will be filed against the former vice president. Pence was interviewed as part of the DOJ’s investigation, along with several aides, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department declined to comment, but a DOJ official confirmed that the department had sent the letter.
The timing of the investigation’s ending is a relief to Pence, as he plans to announce his bid for president next week.”
The Democratic DOJ does not do political hit jobs and if they did, there would not be gullible right wingers on blogs amplifying that “they read the report” so they KNOW that the Republican they wish would step down but will vote for if they have to is a real problem on the ticket.
A hit job is a hit job. It isn’t a credible source you quote to support your views.
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