WASHINGTON — Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) asked former Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur point-blank: Is Joe Biden “senile”?
In a February report declaring that no charges were warranted against Biden for mishandling classified documents, Hur had described the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory” — but at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill, he wouldn’t go any further.
“That conclusion does not appear in my report, congressman,” Hur said, later explaining that his description of Biden’s “memory gaps” only mattered for how the president would seem to a jury.
Hur deflected dozens of questions from lawmakers in similar fashion, declining to play along with their hypotheticals or make damaging statements about either Biden or former President Donald Trump — who, unlike his successor, does face charges for mishandling classified material, as well as obstructing federal investigators.
Republicans complained over and over that Biden should have been charged with a crime, while Democrats emphasized Biden’s cooperation with Hur’s investigation and occasionally criticized Hur for calling Biden old. They also played a clip reel of Trump, who’s seeking to retake the White House from Biden, stumbling over his words and saying that he couldn’t remember things.
Hur insisted that politics played no part in his decisions, noting that the law required him to prepare a confidential report for the attorney general about his prosecutorial decisions.
“You say it wasn’t political and you must have understood the impact of your words,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said. “You must have understood the impact of your decision to go beyond the specifics of a particular document to go to the very general, to your own personal, prejudicial, subjective opinion of the president, one you knew would be amplified by his political opponent, one you knew that would influence a political campaign.”
Hur shot back: “What you are suggesting…
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