Special counsel: Biden retained classified docs, but says no criminal charges are warranted
WASHINGTON
President Joe Biden carelessly handled classified materials found at his home and former office after his vice presidency and shared government secrets with his ghostwriter, but that evidence was not strong enough to justify charging him with crimes, according to a long-awaited special counsel report released Thursday.
The 345-page Justice Department finding ends an investigation that has hung over the president’s head for more than a year. The report could prove to be a political liability, however, because it describes President Biden, 81, as a forgetful old man who kept notebooks and documents with classified information at his home — a stinging characterization that will likely be used against him by Republicans.
Biden, in a written statement, defended himself as someone who has always taken seriously the protection of national security secrets.
“I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks, and sought no delays. In fact, I was so determined to give the Special Counsel what they needed that I went forward with five hours of in-person interviews over two days” amid the U.S. government response to an international crisis, Biden said, referring the Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed.”
Special counsel Robert K. Hur, who interviewed Biden at the White House, found evidence that he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen” but concluded that evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hur’s team said prosecuting Biden would be “unwarranted based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors” laid out in Justice Department prosecution policies.
To secure a conviction, officials would need to prove to a jury that Biden retained the information willfully. Investigators examined why Biden first told his ghost writer that he had classified information in his possession back in 2017, but didn’t report it to authorities.
Ultimately, the report said a jury would find Biden to be a sympathetic figure and “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Prosecutors also suggested it might not have struck Biden as noteworthy that he was in possession of classified documents so soon after his term as vice president had ended.
Hur’s report said 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.”
Hur’s report portrayed Biden as well-intentioned, but sometimes hapless and forgetful, a man who had access to classified materials throughout his decadeslong government career.
Biden saved notebooks from his time as vice president that contained classified information, the report said, and used those notebooks to craft his 2017 memoir with a ghostwriter. The special counsel noted the published books ultimately did not contain classified information.
Richard Sauber, a lawyer for Biden on the documents case, said he was pleased the investigation has ended without charges, emphasizing in a statement that the president “fully cooperated from day one.”
Sauber said every administration ends with packing mistakes involving documents, and Biden’s was no different.
The special counsel team conducted 173 interviews with 147 witnesses, collecting millions of documents to compile the report. They said that Biden cooperated with investigators and consented to multiple searches of his properties.
Hur’s report does not shy away from the fact that former president Donald Trump is being prosecuted for his documents while Biden is not; the special counsel argues that the different facts of the two cases lead to different charging decisions.
“With one exception, there is no record of the Department of Justice prosecuting a former president or vice president for mishandling classified documents from his own administration. The exception is former President Trump,” the report said.
“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023,” the report said.