"My memory is fine: look what I've done since I've been president" of the United States.
Joe Biden said this at the White House, answering a question from Fox.
“I never released classified information,” he later said of the investigation into his handling of classified papers when he was vice president.
“I should have paid more attention to how those documents were handled,” Biden admitted, reiterating that he had not “broken the law.”
"The special prosecutor concluded that I did not commit any crime with the classified papers. Not only that: I collaborated with the justice system, testifying for five hours in two days, 8 and 9 October, in the aftermath of the attack of Hamas against Israel, therefore in the midst of an international crisis", underlined Biden.
"Trump, on the contrary, lied and did not cooperate," added the US president.
Biden 'should not be indicted', but there is embarrassment over the secret papers: 'Poorly kept documents, a forgetful elderly person'
by Claudio Salvalaggio
Joe Biden voluntarily retained and disclosed highly classified materials as a private citizen, including documents on military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other sensitive national security matters, but he should not be indicted because it would be difficult to convince a jury to convict him, the report concludes. by special prosecutor Robert Hur, who however harshly criticizes the president's handling of documents, greatly embarrassing him and portraying him as an elderly man with a poor memory.
If the dem leader can breathe a sigh of relief on a judicial level, on a political-electoral level he suffers a double whammy.
The first is that he will no longer be able to boast the experience and competence that he also put at the center of his campaign for re-election to the White House.
The second is that he will hardly be able to attack his rival Donald Trump in the proceedings for the Mar-a-Lago classified papers, creating a sort of equivalence in front of public opinion, even if the tycoon not only was not collaborative with the investigators but attempted to tamper with the evidence.
The investigation into Biden was launched after the FBI discovered top secret documents in his home garage in Wilmington and in a private office of a Washington think tank at the end of 2022.
The president offered his full support to the investigation and was interviewed, but many disturbing circumstances emerged from the investigation.
First of all, the lack of security with which the documents that should have been delivered to the National Archives were kept: some secret papers on Afghanistan (including those proving its opposition to the increase in troops decided by Obama) were kept in a cardboard box worn in his garage, together with a ladder and a wicker basket, as shown by some photos that will probably go viral on social media, especially among right-wing activists.
His notebooks containing confidential information were kept in open drawers at home.
Biden was also known to remove and store classified material from his briefing books for future use, and his staff sometimes failed to retrieve it, the report said.
“And there was no procedure for tracking some of the classified material Biden had received outside of his briefing books,” Hur writes.
Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but the special counsel states in his report that he would not have recommended charges against him anyway for various reasons.
These included the fact that as vice president, and during his subsequent presidency when the Afghanistan papers were found, "he had the authority to keep classified documents in his home."
But also the fact that a jury might think that he had forgotten them in a rented house in Virginia and therefore not voluntarily retained them.
In addition to the fact that in a trial Biden would probably have presented himself to the jury "as an empathetic, well-intentioned elderly man with a poor memory", as emerged both with the author of his biography and in the deposition before investigators.
Commenting on the president's memoir, Hur says he "appeared to have significant limitations" in his testimony.
In one "he didn't remember when he was vice president, forgetting when his mandate ended", in another when it began.
He also "did not remember, even after several years, when his son Beau died."
The report adds that "his memory appeared fuzzy in describing the Afghanistan debate that had once been so important to him. Among other things, he erroneously stated that he 'had a real difference' of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry , when, in reality, Eikenberry was an ally whom Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving holiday memo to President Obama."
Biden "rejoiced" that the investigation concluded without charges, recalled his full collaboration - including with two depositions immediately after the Hamas attack in Israel - and reiterated that he has always "worked to protect the America's security."
But his legal team has already requested that Hur correct his comments about the president's memoir, "which we do not think are accurate or appropriate."
Trump in the meantime has already gone on the attack: "This case has shown that the judicial system has a double standard and the trials against me are selective and unconstitutional! Biden's case is 100 times different and more serious than mine" .
Immediately afterwards, the speaker of the House and close ally of the tycoon, Mike Johnson, echoed him: "A man so incompetent that he cannot be indicted for having poorly kept his papers is certainly unsuitable for the Oval Office".
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