Special counsel report specifically cites Biden's age and poor memory as a reason he wasn't charged
Win McNamee/Getty Images
- Special Counsel Robert Hur investigated President Joe Biden's improper document storage for a year.
- His newly released report does not recommend charging the president with any crimes.
- It specifically cites Biden's declining memory and old age as reasons not to prosecute.
US Special Counsel Robert Hur's newly released report cites President Joe Biden's memory and advanced age as a reason not to charge him for mishandling classified documents.
In Hur's yearlong investigation, his team found several classified documents improperly stored outside the White House stemming from Biden's time in the Senate and vice presidency.
And while Biden's likely 2024 presidential challenger, former President Donald Trump, was charged with 37 felony counts in 2023 for similarly holding onto documents, Hur's report cited several reasons not to charge the sitting president, such as his age and declining memory.
"We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," the report said, noting potential jurors would likely want to give him the benefit of the doubt. "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."
Responding to the report, White House counsel Richard Sauber emphasized the fact that charges weren't recommended.
"We disagree with a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments in the Special Counsel's report," Sauber said. "Nonetheless, the most important decision the Special Counsel made—that no charges are warranted—is firmly based on the facts and evidence."
The special counsel's report comes as Republican leaders and some Democrats have raised alarms about the president's age cognitive abilities.
In 2022, a month before he turned 80, Biden agreed it was "totally legitimate" for voters to question his ability to lead the country into his mid-eighties.