Biden’s memory is ‘hazy’ and ‘poor,’ says special counsel’s report
The longstanding concerns about President Joe Biden’s age and memory intensified on Thursday after the release of a special counsel’s report investigating his possession of classified documents.
The report described the 81-year- old Democrat’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations.” It noted that Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life.
“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report said. “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
While Biden will not face charges for mishandling classified documents, the report’s assertions about his memory could undermine Biden’smessage to voters that he canmanage the government and safeguard the country. Voters are already going into this year’s election with severe misgivings about Biden’s age, having scrutinized his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walkingandeven a summer tumble off his bicycle.
In ruling out a prosecution of Biden over his retention of highly classified materials as a private citizen, the report suggested he would seemtoo feeble to prosecute: “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.”
Thewhitehouse pushed back on the characterizations of Biden’s memory in a Feb. 5 letter from the president’s lawyers that was published in special counsel Roberthur’s report. The letter argues that Biden’s “inability to recall dates or details of events that happened years ago is neither surprising nor unusual,” particularly about when certain documents were packed or moved.
“We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate,” the letter said. “The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years- old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report.”
It is not unusual for the subjects of government investigations to say they don’t recall an event or a conversation in order to avoid issues such as perjury. The special counsel did not release the transcript of the interviews with Biden, so some context is unclear. Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, has boasted of his own vastmemory but has also at times said in legal proceedings that he does not recall certain events.
Biden noted in a statement issued Thursday that he had sat for five hours of interviews with Hur’s team over two days onoct. 8 and 9, “even though Israel had just been attacked on October 7th and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.”
In an August poll by The Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs, 77% of U. S. adults said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. It was one of the rare sources of bipartisan agreement during a politically polarized era, with 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats saying Biden’s age is a problem.
The release of the report overlapped with recent Biden speeches in which he mistakenly claimed to talk with European leaders — France’s Francois Mitterand and Germany’s Helmut Kohl — who had, in fact, not held office since the 1990s and had died several years ago.
The 77-year- old Trump also faces questions about recent memory lapses. In a January speech, Trump mistakenly and repeatedly confused former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his major opponent for the GOP nomination, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif.