Biden insists his ‘memory is fine’ after critical report
president Joe Biden has insisted he did not share classified information and angrily denied claims in a special counsel’s report that his memory was poor.
The report from Robert Hur, which was released on Thursdayevening, gives a harshly critical assessment of Mr Biden’s handling of sensitive government materials, but also details the reasons why he should not be charged with the crime.
It described the 81-year-old Democrat’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy ,”“faulty ,”“poor” and having“significant limitations ”, saying he could not recall defining milestones in his own life.
“My memory is fine ,” mr bid en responded from the White House, where he grew visibly angry in denying that he had forgotten when his son died. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“How in the hell dare he raise that?” he said. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”
“Every Memorial Day we hold a service to remember him, attended by friends and family and people who loved him. I don’t need anyone, I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”
Describing the report’s descriptions of his memory as “extraneous commentary”, Mr Biden said he is “the most qualified person in this country to be president”.
Even as Mr Biden defended himself, he committed another gaffe while discussing the Israel-hamas War and mistakenly referred to Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah El-sissi as “the president of Mexico”.
A letter from the president’s lawyers, written on February 5 and published in the report, said its treatment of Mr Biden’s memory was neither “accurate or appropriate” and had no place in a department of justice report.
“The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.”
The report which was released on Thursday, r found evidence Mr Biden wilfully retained and shared highly classified inforus mation when he was a private citizen, including about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, but concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.
“I did not share classified information ,” Mr Bid en insisted .“I did not share it with my ghostwriter.”
He said he was not aware how the boxes containing classified documents ended up in his garage.
The findings will likely blunt his ability to force fully condemn Donald Trump, his likely opponent in november’ s presidential election, over a criminal indictment charging the former president with illegally hoarding classified records a this Mar-a-l ago estate in Florida.
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Mr Hur wrote.
However, according to the report, evidence suggests many of the classified documents recovered by investigators at the Penn Biden Centre, in parts of Mr Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake”.
How in the hell dare he raise that?
President Joe Biden on being questioned about his son’s death