WASHINGTON (AP) — A Special counsel's report released Thursday They found evidence that President Joe Biden knowingly kept and shared highly classified information, including Afghanistan military and foreign policy, while he was a civilian, but concluded that criminal charges are not warranted. Ta.
Report from Special Counsel Robert Hur A criminal investigation that overshadowed Biden's presidential term last year will be resolved. But a scathing critical assessment of the government's handling of classified records and the explicit characterization of his memory will provide new impetus. Questions regarding his abilities and age It crushed voters' deepest concerns about his re-election bid.
In remarks from the White House Thursday night, Biden denied inappropriately sharing classified information and questioned his mental strength, particularly his memory of the timing of his late son Beau's death from cancer. He angrily criticized Mr. Heard.
The shocking findings are almost certain to slow Biden's efforts to draw contrasts with Donald Trump, his likely opponent in November's presidential election. Criminal charges have been filed against the former president for illegally storing classified records at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, mansion and refusing to return them to the government. Despite the many differences between the cases, President Trump quickly used the special counsel's report to portray himself as a victim of a “two-tiered justice system.”
But even though Ho found evidence that Biden was intentionally clingy; shared with ghostwriter Because the information is so sensitive, the special counsel made much of the report clear that the evidence met the standards for criminal charges, including that the Justice Department would likely not be able to prove Biden's intentions beyond a reasonable doubt. I spent a lot of time explaining why I believed that there was no such thing. Among other things, it was pointed out that he had become forgetful due to his old age, and that there was a possibility of an “innocent explanation'' for the records that could not be refuted.
Mr. Biden insisted that he had “not shared any classified information.” “I didn't share it with the ghostwriter,” he said, adding that he didn't know how the box containing the confidential documents ended up in his garage.
And in response to Xu's portrayal, Biden insisted to reporters, “My memory is fine,” and said he believed he was still the most qualified president.
“How on earth could he say something like that?'' Mr. Biden asked about Mr. Ho's comments about his son's death, saying he believed it was none of his business.
Biden astutely noted that he sat for five hours for an in-person interview immediately after Hamas' attack on Israel in October, when “I was in the middle of dealing with an international crisis.”
“I believed it was an obligation to the American people to let them know that there would be no charges and the matter would be resolved,” Biden said.
The investigation into Biden is separate from the investigation into Biden by Special Counsel Jack Smith. President Trump's handling of classified documents After President Trump leaves the White House. Mr. Smith's team accused Mr. Trump of illegally storing classified records at his Mar-a-Lago home and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. President Trump said he did nothing wrong.
In his report, Mr. However, it was pointed out that Mr. Biden intentionally handed over classified documents.
Hmm, Former federal prosecutor in the Trump administration, was appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2023 following the initial discovery of classified records in his Washington office space by Biden staff. Subsequent FBI property searches, all independently coordinated by Biden's staff, uncovered additional classified documents from his time as vice president and senator.
Many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, parts of Biden's home in Delaware, and the Senate Archives at the University of Delaware were “mistakenly” stored, according to Ho's report.
Although Biden could not be prosecuted as a sitting president, Ho's report said he did not recommend prosecution against Biden in any case.
“We would reach the same conclusion even if the Department of Justice's policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president,” the report said.
But investigators found evidence that Biden intentionally kept and disclosed some of the records found in his garage, office and basement at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The files concern the Obama administration's troop increase in Afghanistan, which Biden vehemently opposed. He kept records documenting his position, including a confidential letter he wrote to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.
The documents found in a box in Biden's Delaware garage are marked with classification marks to the Top Secret/Classified Information level, meaning they are “very important to him and for his personal use.” and other materials that may have been accessed. But Hoar wrote that there was “lack of evidence” to prove that Biden placed the documents in the box and that he knew they were there.
Some sensitive information related to Afghanistan was shared with a ghostwriter who published his memoirs in 2007 and 2017. As part of the investigation, investigators examined a recording of a February 2017 conversation between Biden and a ghostwriter in which he was heard saying: He said, “He just found all the classified stuff downstairs.''
Prosecutors believe the remarks were made by Biden while he was renting a home in Virginia, and were a reference to the same document that FBI agents later found at his home in Delaware. According to the report, when Mr. Biden read the notes to the ghostwriter, he sometimes skipped over sensitive material, but at other times he read the sensitive notes “as is.”
The report cited Biden's deep familiarity with “the steps taken to protect classified information and the need for measures to prevent harm to national security,” and said that after leaving office, he was handwritten. He said there was some evidence to suggest he was aware that he could not keep confidential notes at his home. ” But prosecutors say he kept a notebook containing confidential information in an unlocked drawer in his home.
“He had a strong motive to ignore the rules governing the proper handling of the confidential information contained in the notebook,” the report said. “He lavished his notes on the notebook during hours of discussion with his ghostwriter, and considered it a very private and prized possession that he didn't want to part with.”
While the report removes legal risk for the president, it is still an embarrassment for Biden. Biden is telling voters that his abilities and experience are central to the rationale for sending him to the Oval Office. According to the paper, Biden is known to have removed confidential material from his press conferences and stored it for future use, and staffers have struggled and sometimes failed to retrieve such records. It is said that there was.
Still, Ho was at pains to point out multiple reasons why prosecutors did not believe they could prove the criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt.
These included Biden's “limited memory” and a conversation with a ghostwriter recorded in 2017, as well as his inability to immediately recall the number of years he served as vice president, prosecutors said. Both interviews were conducted with investigators last year. Mr. Hoar said Mr. Biden may have discovered these records at his home in Virginia in 2017 and then quickly forgotten about them.
“Given Mr. Biden's limited accuracy and memory in his interviews with the ghostwriter and our office, the jury found that the only eight-word statement he made to the ghostwriter regarding the discovery of classified documents in Virginia… “We may be hesitant to give undue weight to evidence other, more direct evidence,” the report said.
“We also believe that Mr. Biden is likely to appear before the jury at trial as the same sympathetic, well-meaning, older man with a poor memory that he was when we interviewed him.” Investigators wrote:
Additionally, prosecutors say Biden could plausibly believe the notebook was his personal property and belonged to him, even though it contained classified information.
In an interview with prosecutors, Biden emphasized to investigators that the notebook was “my property” and that “every president before me has done the exact same thing,” the report said.
Under Justice Department regulations, the special counsel is required to submit a confidential report to the attorney general at the end of his work. Such reports are typically made public. The dual appointments in the Biden-Trump case were seen as a way to shield the Justice Department from claims of bias or conflict by putting the investigation in the hands of specially appointed prosecutors.
Garland has worked hard to challenge Republican claims that the Justice Department is becoming politicized. He appointed a special prosecutor to investigate not only the president but also his son. hunterled to criminal charges on separate tax and gun charges.
But in this case, Mr. Biden's personal lawyer and White House lawyers provided too much disparaging information about Mr. Biden's characterization in the report and about unindicted targets like the president. strongly objected to the fact that it was made public.
Biden's personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, accused the special counsel of violating “established” norms and “smashing down” the president.
“The special counsel could not refrain from overreaching, which may be understandable given the intense pressures of the current political environment, regardless of how those pressures may have affected the final report. , which disregards the department's regulations and norms,'' he said in a statement.
But once Mr. Garland appointed a special prosecutor, the public results were essentially sealed.
Regulations require the special prosecutor to prepare a confidential report to the attorney general at the end of his work. These documents are made available to the public even if they contain unfavorable assessments of people who have not been criminally charged.
