Lawmakers turned a Tuesday hearing on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a proxy battle between the Democratic president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump. A newly released transcript of Biden’s testimony last fall showed that he repeatedly insisted he never meant to retain classified information after he left the vice presidency.
Special counsel Robert Hur, testifying for more than four hours before the House Judiciary Committee, stood steadfastly by the assessments in his 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges for the 81-year-old president, finding insufficient evidence to make a case stand up in court.
Biden’s Testimony
The transcript of hours of interviews between Biden and the special counsel released Tuesday provide a more textured picture of the roughly yearlong investigation, filling in some of the gaps left by Hur’s and Biden’s accounting of the exchanges. While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that he was at times fuzzy about dates and details and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.
Party Lines Calcified
The hearing played out as both Biden and Trump were on the cusp of claiming their parties’ nominations, and the party lines calcified almost immediately over which leader meant to hang on to classified documents, or rather, who “willfully” retained them — and who didn’t. And Hur was the rare witness vilified all around, by Republicans angry over his decision not to charge the president, and by Democrats for his unflattering commentary about Biden.
Republicans argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who refused to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.
Democrats Question Hur
Democrats started off their questioning by hitting hard at the contrast between Biden and Trump, focusing more on the latter’s criminal case. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrat, asked whether Biden’s willingness to comply with investigators and turn over documents contributed to the decision not to charge him.
“That was a factor in our analysis,” Hur said.
But the Democrats quickly bored into Hur, who was handpicked by Biden’s own attorney general, suggesting he was a political partisan doing Republican bidding via his written slights about Biden’s age and memory. Hur took issue with the characterization.
“Politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps, my decisions and the words that in I put in my report,” Hur responded.
Republicans Insist Unfair Treatment
Republicans, meanwhile, insisted Trump was being unfairly singled out and vilified, questioning how the two cases were really all that different.
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., called it a “glaring double standard.”
“Donald Trump’s being prosecuted for exactly the same act that you documented Joe Biden committed,” he told Hur.
!Special Counsel Robert Hur is sworn in during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
