White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held a news conference Friday, a day after a special counsel report found evidence that President Joe Biden deliberately withheld and shared highly classified while he was a private citizen, notably on military and foreign policy in Afghanistan. , but concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.
Watch the event in the player above.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday criticized a Justice Department special counsel’s report on Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents raising questions about the president’s memory, calling it “politically motivated” and ” free,” as the White House said the president would take. measures to protect classified documents during presidential transitions.
The report by Robert Hur, the former U.S. attorney in Maryland selected by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden, found evidence that Biden deliberately withheld and shared highly classified information with a ghostwriter, but explained why he didn’t think not that the evidence met the standards for criminal charges, including a strong likelihood that the Justice Department would not be able to prove Biden’s intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
The White House said Biden made a mistake in having the documents at home, and Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, said Friday that Biden would soon appoint a task force “to ensure that best processes are in place” to protect classified documents when administrations change.
The Hur report describes the 81-year-old Democrat’s memory as “fuzzy,” “fuzzy,” “flawed,” “poor” and with “significant limitations.” He noted that Biden didn’t remember setting milestones in his own life, such as the death of his son Beau or the time he was vice president.
When asked if the White House would release a copy of the transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur that could challenge Hur’s characterizations, Sams said some parts were classified, but if some parts could be declassified, “we’ll take a look.” and make a decision.
Responding to a question from a reporter at the end of a gun violence prevention event at the White House, Harris said that as a former prosecutor, she viewed Hur’s comments as “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate.”
She noted that the two-day meeting between Biden and Hur took place just after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, where more than 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage – including many Americans.
“This was an intense moment for the commander in chief of the United States of America,” Harris said, saying she spent countless hours with Biden and other officials in the days that followed and that he was “aware of everything”.
She added that “the manner in which the President’s behavior has been characterized in this report could not be more factually erroneous and clearly politically motivated and gratuitous.”
Harris concluded by saying that a special counsel should have a “higher level of integrity than what we’ve seen.”
His comments came a day after Biden insisted his “memory was good.” and became visibly angry with the White House, as he denied forgetting his son’s death. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
Sams suggested that the political environment led Hur, who was appointed U.S. Attorney by former President Donald Trump, to include these comments. “We live in an environment that generates a tremendous amount of pressure because congressional Republicans, other Republicans, attack prosecutors they don’t like,” he said.
