I watched clips of yesterday’s hearings about the report of Robert Hur, who was selected by Merrick Garland to be Special Counsel to investigate Biden and documents found in his home and offices. The big takeaway from his voluminous report was that he considered Biden’s memory to be weak and that a jury would treat him as a kindly old man with a poor memory.
Republicans wanted to use the hearings to demonstrate that Biden is senile. Democrats wanted to use the hearings to show that Trump has a worse memory than Biden and that—unlike Biden— he willfully retained top-secret documents and refused to return them.
Hur resigned from the Department of Justice the day before the hearing and hired a Trump insider to represent him.
Mary Trump includes in her post the video introduced by Eric Swalwell. It shows Trump in numerous gaffes, memory lapses, and moments of incoherence. Trump later claimed all the clips were generated by AI.
Not included is the question posed by Eric Swalwell that was shown last night on Laurence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show. Swallwell read the transcript of Hur’s interview and quoted it. At one point, the transcript says, Hur observed that Biden had “a photographic memory” of the layout of his home. Not a sign of a poor memory. Apparently the transcript portrayed Biden differently than Hur’s report.
One of the Republicans read the dictionary definition of senile and asked Hur if he believed Biden was senile. Hur did not.
The question I kept wondering was why Merrick Garland thought that it was a good idea to select a trusted Trump appointee to investigate Biden.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But are you senile?
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I have no good answer to that.
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No good answer? Proof of senility!
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Also, my original comment, to which you replied, appears to have disappeared. Senility?
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Your comment, in response to my silly question about whether you are senile was, “I have no good answer to tha
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But your question “But are you senile?” was in response to a comment of mine, which has disappeared. And I can’t remember what that comment was. Because I am senile.
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“The question I kept wondering was why Merrick Garland thought that it was a good idea to select a trusted Trump appointee to investigate Biden.”
To keep the appearance that it was a bipartisan investigation. He did the same with the guy who was appointed to Hunter’s case, keeping on the guy who Barr appointed.
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It is not just Garland Democrats going back to Bubba Clinton have not had the strength of their convictions. Something you can not say about Republicans. As wrong headed as Republicans are.
Bubba “the age of big Government is over ” . As he abandons the working class Mid Western wing of the Party with a Republican Trade agreement NAFTA . Abandons the poor with welfare reform that mirrored Reagan’s portrayal of Welfare Queens. He didn’t reduce poverty but he did throw mothers off of the roles raising child poverty. Then of course we have the Larry Summers, Bob Rubin team whose deregulation of Banks soon landed us in the Great Recession.
Move on to Obama who reappoints Republican Bill Gates as defense Secretary. How did that workout?. Pushes Elizabeth Warren and the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born out of the room and puts Bob Rubin’s Wall Street team of Geithner and Summers in charge of a recovery that leaves the Banks whole and bigger with bail outs. While workers, consumers and homeowners are in the toilet.
Appoints a debt Commission in the middle of a financial collapse. Kills the Public option in ACA and ends it off by nominating Garland. While promising to ram another trade agreement ,the TPP, down the throats of Progressives, the Democratic Party and the American People in the Lame Duck with Republicans. (whether Clinton won or not).
Biden for the most part has attempted to “Go Big”(Robert Kutner) but it should be obvious since 08 perhaps 94 that there is no partner on the other side of the aisle. It also should be obvious that a large portion of the American public is clueless and “has no idea who is pushing what policies and how it affects them”. So Biden is not being rewarded for policy.
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People forget that being President is not a TV game show.
It’s about choosing a leader who will advocate for policies and programs and will select experienced people to advise him and to administer government agencies.
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Bingo
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The hilarity is matched with the all time LOW approval rating of the cretins of congress. Maybe the rethinking, of the State induced fantasies, surrounding the rulers, is underway. More and more are seeing the world in which they reside, is very different from the one, they were taught to believe in. Seeking solace through electoral fantasies, doesn’t work. No matter who loses an election, MONEY always wins.
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This was so perfect in showing Mr. Hur’s extreme bias and lack of integrity:
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen:
@NoLieWithBTC 12:58PM – Mar 12, 2024
“A video has been unearthed showing Trump-appointed prosecutor Robert Hur claiming that Bush v. Gore happened in “2001” or “2002.” It happened in 2000. By his own logic, he must have dementia.”
(I didn’t paste the 11 second video of Hur demonstrating his own “dementia”, but it’s worth watching it to see the supreme confidence in which he clearly is so demented he doesn’t even recognize his own dementia!)
Robert Hur will be glad to know that no perjury charges will be filed and he will not be indicted because it is believed that the jury would not convict him due to his cognitive failings.
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Another example of Robert Hur’s significant memory lapses (from Daily Kos):
“Robert Hur could not remember complementing Biden on his memory until Democrats read him the transcript.”
Don’t worry, Mr. Hur, we won’t be prosecuting you for perjury because your significant memory issues means that we don’t believe the jury would convict you for your committing the crime of perjury. We are just as unbiased and non-partisan as you are, Mr. Hur, and therefore we are bending over backward to be fair to you and not indict you for perjury because we know a jury won’t convict you for your crime, due to your significant cognitive issues. No need to thank us for being so fair to you, Mr. Hur, we just followed your example of how to be ethical and honest.
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Good one!
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No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen also links to a hilarious recent video of Robert Hur getting a year wrong in an interview, and providing more reason why Hur’s own serious memory failings is a valid reason not to indict Hur on serious perjury charges.
“A video has been unearthed showing Trump-appointed prosecutor Robert Hur claiming that Bush v. Gore happened in “2001” or “2002.” It happened in 2000. By his own logic, he must have dementia.”
It’s worth watching the video of how Hur is supremely confident of that year, even though he is wrong! Definitely a sign that his cognitive decline is even more serious than Biden’s!
@NoLieWithBTC 12:58 PM March 12, 2024
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Garland seems to have poor judgement, repeatedly.
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Democrats think Republicans are going to fight fair , but they interpret fair as a sign of weakness .
As the famous Chinese warriors say :You must know your enemy .”
And the Republicans are not making America great again but instead , are bringing her down to their sordid , basement level .
Never bring a sword to a gunfight . When are Democrats going to learn that adage ?
Marc
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Marcy Wheeler, at Empty Wheel, as usual sees through all the right wing deception that the NYT presents as “fact” to tell people the truth that is right in front of our eyes. Once again, the pseudo-journalists at the NYT are the townspeople fawning over their current “king” – Robert Hur – who they praise and whose integrity they essentially have vouched for – and Marcy Wheeler is the little boy who says the truth that is right before our eyes.
“It was particularly damaging to Hur that when he denied that, in his interview, Biden had correctly and forcibly stated the date of Beau’s death, the transcript was out showing that’s a lie.
But it also meant that as Hur was spending hours (fewer than the combined length of his Biden interview, though) defending calling Biden an old geezer, people were reading the transcript and seeing that he misrepresented Biden’s acuity.
The transcript is more important, however, for the way it shows that Hur — and even more so, another former Trump US Attorney, Mark Krickbaum — came into that interview with a theory of Biden’s criminal wrong-doing, repeatedly tried to sandbag the President into admitting culpability, only to have the old geezer point out their logical flaws.”
Robert Hur lied. Under oath. His perjury is right before our eyes. Just like the Republican defense attorneys in the Fani Willis case lied in their legal filings. But folks, especially in the media, will still deceive us and tell us that the only person who “appears” to be guilty of perjury is Fani Willis, despite her being the only one who hasn’t said anything that was a lie!
More Marcy Wheeler:
“Rob Hur & Mark Krickbaum came into interview w/Biden w/a theory, he pointed out their logical flaws, but they printed it up anyway. I think they only called him a geezer bc he made them look stupid.”
Until dishonest Republicans who lie under oath like Kavanaugh, Hur, Barr, etc. are prosecuted for their perjury, they will continue to do so, and so will the double standard where their defenders hypocritically claim that democrats like Fani Willis who do NOT commit perjury still “appear” to be committing perjury.
I mean, maybe Kavanaugh WAS “honoring” his female “friend” when he testified under oath that he and his friends was “honoring” their friend when they trashed her reputation throughout their yearbook multiple times. Maybe Hur DID “forget” what DOJ rules were due to his memory problems and that made him testify falsely. Maybe Republican defense attorneys DID believe it was proper to present a false allegation in a legal filing based on something that a rumor that someone else told them about someone else. The Republican Federalist Society Judge who just dropped counts against their Republican clients not only condoned their false allegations, but improperly rewarded them for it.
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Well, I’m glad that Republican judge in Georgia kept the most important charges.
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I don’t think it’s a huge deal. The same conduct is covered in the RICO counts. The State can revise the indictment and fix the problem and go back to the grand jury if it wants to. Not sure it’s worth it.
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FLERP, what matters most in the Georgia trial is whether the judge allows Fani Willis to continue the prosecution of the case. If not, the delay in restarting the case would carry it past the election.
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We’ll know today or tomorrow.
The trial date is tricky. First, Trump may have trials in two other cases that crowd the fall schedule. And big RICO cases really sprawl. When the indictment was filed the State said it expected to call around 150 witnesses and that the trial itself could last four months. If that’s accurate, anything later than an early August date means the trial couldn’t conclude prior to the election. And because an early August date might take up the entire calendar through November, that means it also might prevent one or both of the two federal trials from happening before the election. I’d rather see the federal trials happen first—sleeker and simpler cases, quicker trials, better prosecutors.
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Today, Judge Cannon in the Florida case is hearing oral argument on Trump’s and others’ motions to dismiss the inducement.
https://x.com/annabower/status/1768281936672313742?s=46&t=vV_4bJ7GuABaalzetJofQA
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Now the NYC trial is going to be delayed by at least 30 days because Trump needs time to review 30,000 pages of documents turned over by the U.S. Attorney’s office. This would put the start date off until late April.
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Here’s a good Twitter thread about why the State might not want to go back to a grand jury with a new indictment.
https://x.com/gsugrinding/status/1768282655123005637?s=46&t=vV_4bJ7GuABaalzetJofQA
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It was revealing that Federalist Society Republican Judge Scott McAfee in Georgia – who was certainly not a stickler when it came to Republican Defense attorneys writing a legal brief that included blatantly false claims about Fani Willis and made vague charges that two prosecutors hooking up was an unexplained “conflict of interest” for the defense. It would NOT have been a huge deal for the Republican defense attorneys had Judge McAfee acted properly and requested they provide credible evidence or affidavits from their witnesses. In fact, it would have been proper for the judge to do so. Instead, this Republican judge rushed to hold a public hearing on the vague “charges” and forced Fani Willis to defend herself from these vague charges by allowing the Republican defense attorneys interrogate her with those vague charges! Did they have sex in the office!
Many people thought it wasn’t a big deal that Judge McAfee held that unprecedented public kangaroo hearing. (It was.)
Many people thought it wasn’t a big deal that Robert Hur falsely portrayed Biden as being significantly cognitively impaired in his report. (It was.)
Many people thought it wasn’t a big deal that James Comey implied guilty about “she could not be named’ when he announced he wasn’t pressing charges on “her emails”. (It was.)
Many people thought it wasn’t a big deal that William Barr entirely mischaracterized Mueller’s report and held it for weeks until the narrative that Trump was completely exonerated took hold. (It was.)
Many people thought it wasn’t a big deal that Republican prosecutor John Durham prosecuted a Democratic attorney for the “crime” of giving the FBI a heads up about a serious potential crime that the FBI chose to spend 20 minutes “investigating” like this: “Hello, did you commit any crimes? You didn’t? Well then we will be charging the person who reported that you might have, since our thorough investigation of asking you if you committed a crime and you saying no totally exonerated you!” (It was a big deal.)
Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Scott McAfee, Robert Hur are part of what Mark Joseph Stern in Slate.com accurately described in his March 12 article (Note that Federalist Society Judge McAfee easily could be included here):
“This isn’t a conspiracy, and these partisans aren’t sleeper agents. They are part of the conservative legal movement, which has constructed a machine that elevates people like Hur and Cannon to the top, ideally gathering as little baggage as possible along the way. Hur, like Cannon, is affiliated with the Federalist Society, the network of ambitious conservative lawyers who elevate one another into positions of power and influence. Does anyone seriously think that Hur or Cannon believes they’ve reached the highest point of their career? By running interference for Trump, Cannon is obviously auditioning for a promotion—perhaps to the Supreme Court—under her benefactor’s second term. Hur, too, has every incentive to harm Biden in this moment. During a second Trump presidency, Hur is now well positioned to get the nod for a higher position within the Department of Justice, perhaps even attorney general. At worst, he is in line for a judgeship. Brett Kavanaugh helped Kenneth Starr investigate Bill Clinton (in a maximally salacious, partisan manner) and wound up on the Supreme Court. At least one of his colleagues on the Starr team, Karin Immergut—the woman tasked with asking Monica Lewinsky invasive sexual questions—also landed a judgeship under Trump.
When you’re investigating a president, it pays to be political.”
And when you are a judge like Cannon or McAfee, it pays to be political.
Loved this part in the article:
“Yes, Hur’s dishonest jabs at Biden showed a profound lack of probity and principle. Yes, Hur took advantage of the investigation’s secrecy (and the president’s respect for its confidentiality) to paint a picture of his findings that, in many key respects, simply does not align with reality. But that is what Trump appointees do.”
That’s what Republicans do.
It’s never a big deal until the damage is done.
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As another bereaved parent, I find too that the date is emblazoned in my memory, but I have to think & do a little subtraction to remember the year. This is probably not unusual at all.
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I think one of the most onerous things about press coverage when Hur first released the report: right up front, the timing should have been noted prominently. Hamas attacked Israel starting 6:30am IDT– 12:30am EDT– on Friday, Oct 7. Hur’s interview began at 12:15pm Saturday Oct 8, 36 hrs later. (The first thing Biden said to FBI: ”I just got off the phone with Bibi Netanyahu.”) I’ve read that DOJ offered to postpone the interview under the circumstances, but Biden wanted to get it over with.
Obviously Biden would have had short sleep and multiple distractions that weekend, but that is not unusual for a nation’s president. Transcript shows he was able to concentrate just fine.
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In other hilarious news:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2024-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-leadership-award-honors-elon-musk-sylvester-stallone-martha-stewart-michael-milken-and-rupert-murdoch-302087454.html
PHOENIX, March 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The prestigious JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG LEADERSHIP AWARD (RBG Award) will be presented by the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation to five iconic individuals at an exclusive ceremony and gala at the Library of Congress on April 13, 2024. Justice Ginsburg’s official legacy award celebrates leaders who have demonstrated extraordinary accomplishments in their chosen fields. This year’s RBG Award will go to these exceptional individuals:
ELON MUSK – Entrepreneurship
SYLVESTER STALLONE – Cultural Icon
MARTHA STEWART – Industry Leadership
MICHAEL MILKEN – Philanthropy
RUPERT MURDOCH – Media Mogul
Established in 2020, the RBG Award has previously recognized women of distinction, including HM Queen Elizabeth II and Barbra Streisand. The award was expanded this year to include trailblazing men and women. “Justice Ginsburg fought not only for women but for everyone,” said Julie Opperman, Chair of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “Going forward, to embrace the fullness of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy, we honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best.”
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FLERP, this is probably the worst list of honorees ever. RBG would have objected.
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I’m surprised Steven Segal didn’t make the cut
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This is super strange looking at previous years, when they only seemed to give a single award:
2020 – Agnes Gund
2021 – HM Queen Elizabeth II
2022 – Diane von Furstenberg
2023 – Barbra Streisand
So now it’s 4 right wing/conservative men and Martha Stewart? Something seems very odd here. I wonder what changed at this foundation.
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“…to embrace the fullness of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy, we honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best…”
I’m just speculating here, but I am pretty sure that Justice Ginsburg did not want people who “changed the world”, but wanted people who changed the world for the BETTER. But no doubt I am wrong and next year they will be honoring Putin, Netanyahu, Hamas, and Trump. If only Hitler and Osama bin Laden were alive, they could honor them also.
It’s true that their honorees’ actions did “change the world”. But that this foundation invokes RBG’s name as if HOW they changed the world was irrelevant to RBG, is disgusting.
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