BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP
Released Thursday, an investigative report from a special prosecutor described Joe Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” even though the US president is 81 years old.
Comments “free” And “displaced”, “political motivations”: the White House tried on Friday February 9 to counterattack after the publication on Thursday of an investigative report with devastating effect mentioning the failing memory of President Joe Biden.
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday denounced the “political motivations” of special prosecutor Robert Hur, author of this 388-page investigation report released Thursday, in which he did not recommend prosecutions against the president, aged 81, but described him as a “elderly man with bad memory”.
The magistrate’s report, published following an investigation into classified documents that the American president had in his possession, “clearly politically motivated”Kamala Harris, herself a former prosecutor, told reporters at the White House. “The way the president’s attitude has been portrayed in this report could not be more factually incorrect”also said Kamala Harris.
“Free Reviews”
“When the obvious conclusion is that the evidence does not support an indictment, one wonders why this report devotes so much space to gratuitous and inappropriate criticism of the president”added a spokesperson for the executive, Ian Sams, charged Friday by the White House with playing the firefighter on duty.
“To suggest that he may not have remembered the date of his son’s death is seriously off the mark.”said Ian Sams, brushing aside the idea that this report could harm the president who is running for re-election: “I think the public is intelligent”, did he declare. If the spokesperson did not accuse the special prosecutor of any political motivation, he suggested that Robert Hur may have felt pushed to “exceeding one’s attributions”due to the very polarized American political context, nine months before the November presidential election. “We are in a political environment under high pressure. And when you’re the first special prosecutor who hasn’t indicted anyone, there’s pressure to criticize.”continued Ian Sams.
“How the hell dare he?”
In the report released Thursday, special prosecutor Robert Hur concluded that the president had “knowingly kept and disclosed classified documents after his vice presidency while he was a private citizen” but explained that“an indictment would not be justified”notably because a jury would give the benefit of the doubt to “a friendly, well-meaning older man with a bad memory”. He also wrote that Mr. Biden’s memory “had gotten worse”: President “didn’t remember when he was vice president” nor exactly the year of the death of his eldest son Beau. “How the hell dare he?”Joe Biden retorted on this subject on Thursday evening, visibly very moved, during a televised speech. “I mean well, I’m an old man and I know what I’m doing, dammit. I don’t have any memory problems.”he defended himself.
Robert Hur, a Republican and former federal prosecutor in Maryland, was appointed in January 2023 by the Biden administration’s Justice Minister, Merrick Garland, to investigate the discovery in December 2022 and January 2023 of classified documents dating from the he time when Joe Biden was vice-president (2009-2017) in his residence in Wilmington (Delaware) as well as in a former office.
The Democratic president is running for re-election in November and will most likely find on his way former President Donald Trump, 77 years old and the wide favorite in the Republican primaries. Donald Trump’s political supporters made their point Thursday of the content of the report, notably assuring that Joe Biden was no longer “apt” to govern.