The particular counsel investigating President Biden stated in a report released on Thursday that he had determined to not search prosecution of Mr. Biden over his dealing with of categorized materials after leaving the vice presidency in early 2017, however had discovered proof that Mr. Biden willfully retained and disclosed some delicate materials.
The report said that Mr. Biden had left the White Home after his vice presidency with categorized paperwork about Afghanistan and notebooks with handwritten entries “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods” taken from inside White Home briefings.
Robert Ok. Hur, the particular counsel, stated in his report that Mr. Biden had shared the notebooks with a ghostwriter who helped him on his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.”
Mr. Hur, a former Trump Justice Division official appointed by Lawyer Common Merrick B. Garland in January 2023 to steer the inquiry after categorized recordsdata had been discovered within the storage and dwelling areas of Mr. Biden’s home in Delaware and his former office in Washington, stated his determination to not pursue prison prices would have been the identical even when Justice Division coverage didn’t preclude indicting a sitting president.
“We conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” wrote Mr. Hur.
Mr. Hur cited Mr. Biden’s cooperation with investigators, in stark distinction with former President Donald J. Trump’s conduct when paperwork had been found at his resort in Florida, as one of many elements in his determination to not convey prices.
Whereas Mr. Hur determined to not prosecute Mr. Biden, his causes for doing so are prone to increase new questions concerning the president’s conduct and his psychological state.
It would additionally present potent new political arguments for Mr. Trump in his battle to discredit the division over its way more critical investigation into his retention of categorized supplies, which resulted in prison prices final summer time.
In a dialog recorded at a rented property in Virginia in February 2017 — a month after he left workplace — Mr. Biden informed his ghostwriter he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”
Mr. Hur stated that trade was the strongest foundation for a prosecution he had discovered, however {that a} jury was unlikely to convict Mr. Biden, given the truth that he had grown accustomed to legally retaining paperwork as vice chairman, might need not totally adjusted to the brand new restrictions and believed he had the precise to maintain them — primarily based on President Reagan’s retention of comparable supplies.
That the doc was found in his Delaware storage in a “badly damaged box surrounded by household detritus” indicated he merely might have forgotten he had it over time, moderately than deliberately breaking the regulation, Mr. Hur concluded.
One more reason he selected to not prosecute Mr. Biden was even much less flattering. Mr. Hur cited Mr. Biden’s poor recollection of occasions throughout an interview with prosecutors final fall that lasted two days.
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” Mr. Hur wrote.
It might be tough to persuade a jury after Mr. Biden left workplace that “a former president well into his eighties” was responsible of a felony that “requires a mental state of willfulness.”
