Robert Hur testimony highlights: Special counsel grilled on Biden classified documents report

United States News News

Robert Hur testimony highlights: Special counsel grilled on Biden classified documents report
United States Latest News,United States Headlines
  • 📰 NBCNews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 348 sec. here
  • 7 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 142%
  • Publisher: 86%

This is additional taxonomy that helps us with analytics

Members of both parties grilled Hur over his decision not to charge Biden while characterizing him as "an elderly man with a poor memory."heavily against Hur's report. Democrats are also trying to contrast the classified documents probes into Biden and former President Donald Trump,

"I think the president feels strongly that this case is over and it's time to move on for the business of the American people," Sams said.The White House reiterated its pledge to form a task force to ensure classified information is handled properly going forward after the hearing. Spokesperson Ian Sams said the Biden administration will endeavor to make sure sensitive material isn’t misplaced after presidents and vice presidents leave office.

Jordan pressed Hur about whether the Justice Department or the White House should release the audio recordings of the Biden interview. Hur refused to comment on whether they should, but he volunteered that the audio recording helped to inform his decision not to charge. He continued,"Most notably after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite ... he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it."Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., told Hur that his"reputation is beyond reproach" while questioning him.

"Attorney General Garland did not interfere with my efforts and I was able to conduct a fair thorough and independent investigation," Hur said. It appeared that Tiffany was referencing Pam Hemphill, a grandmother who was charged and convicted in a Jan. 6 trial who has been cited repeatedly by Republicans as a victim of over-prosecution. Hemphill has rejected that characterization, asking Trump on Twitter to stop bringing up her story.

Going into this hearing, some liberals portrayed Hur as a partisan Republican who resigned from the Justice Department so that he could testify today and torch Biden. Conservatives, meanwhile, have hoped Hur could help revive their impeachment probe, after their key witness "You're doing everything you can do to get President Trump re-elected so that you can get appointed as a federal judge, perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice. Is that correct?" Johnson pressed.Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., suggested that Hur had a political motive in writing his report, telling Hur he could not"be so naive" to not understand the"political firestorm" that would ensue.

We haven't had a break yet, but the House is expected to vote around 1:30 p.m. ET, so it's likely members will pause then.In both cases, a Republican prosecutor declines to charge a Democratic presidential candidate but criticizes the person in a manner that has political impact. The result is that neither party is satisfied. Republicans demand to know why he didn’t prosecute; Democrats argue he used gratuitous editorializing to hurt their candidate politically.

Comer's probe, which is part of the House Republican impeachment inquiry, recently faced a major setback when an FBI informant whose information was at the"It’s unclear whether Biden is watching any of the hearing live, but he was scheduled to receive his presidential daily briefing this morning and is set to depart shortly for a meeting with the Teamsters union at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The report compared Trump’s alleged behavior with Biden’s, laying out the ways the president cooperated with the special counsel throughout the course of the investigation. "Is it now OK to keep classified documents in my garage and take them out and show them to my associates?" McClintock said."All I have to do when I'm caught taking home classified materials to say, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Hur, but I'm getting old, my memories not so great,'" McClintock said."This is the doctrine that you've established in our laws now and it's frightening.

In that audio, the special counsel report says, Biden told Zwonitzer that he had found classified information in his possession. Marc Krickbaum, who along with Hur interviewed Biden last October, asked the president if he remembered finding classified information.According to the transcript, Biden said he didn’t remember finding classified information.

“Look, what I was doing, I was writing a book about how the family responded to a son we knew was dying," he said, according to the transcript, noting that the diaries helped refresh his memory.

"The evidence and the President himself put his memory squarely at issue," he said."My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president's memory was necessary and accurate, and fair. Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly."House Oversight ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

"We’ve also subpoenaed the Department of Justice for audio recordings and transcripts of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Hur," he said, saying that they were due last Thursday."Only this morning, a couple of hours before today’s hearing, the Department of Justice finally provided the transcript of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Hur. The timing is not coincidental.

The political backdrop to this hearing was underlined by the fact that both party's openings focused on the actions and words of the other party's presidential nominee.A committee aide said Republicans’ top priority today is to highlight Hur’s description of Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and his references to Biden’s “diminished faculties.”

White House officials concluded that evening that Biden needed to address the special counsel’s most damning allegations head-on and express his anger about the report directly, according to two people familiar with the decision. He is the son of Korean immigrants who attended Harvard and Stanford Law and then clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Bottom line: Expect to hear the White House and its Democratic allies repeatedly emphasize today that the conclusion of the Hur report resulted in no criminal charges, despite the questions raised about the president’s handling of classified material.The Justice Department began making materials from Hur’s investigation available to the House Judiciary Committee on Friday. Jordan and Comer subpoenaed the materials last month.

According to the review of the transcript, Biden at times expanded beyond the narrow subject areas of particular questions. At one point, he described in vivid detail a 2011 visit to Mongolia, where he displayed unexpected archery skills at a cultural performance in his honor. Hur will argue that his assessment in the report about the relevance of Biden’s memory was “necessary and accurate and fair.”

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

NBCNews /  🏆 10. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Special Counsel Robert Hur to Testify on Biden's Handling of Classified DocumentsSpecial Counsel Robert Hur to Testify on Biden's Handling of Classified DocumentsSpecial counsel Robert Hur is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on his investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents, speaking publicly for the first time about the probe that resulted in no charges but set off a political firestorm about the president's age and mental fitness.
Read more »

Special counsel Robert Hur stands by report on Biden's memorySpecial counsel Robert Hur stands by report on Biden's memoryLawmakers have turned a hearing on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a proxy battle between the Democratic president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Read more »

Robert Hur defends special counsel report at tense House hearing on Biden documents probeRobert Hur defends special counsel report at tense House hearing on Biden documents probeIn a tense hearing, Robert Hur fielded frustrations from both Democrats and Republicans, who took issue with the former special counsel's report.
Read more »

Robert Hur Admits Telling Biden He Seemed To Have 'Photographic Recall'Robert Hur Admits Telling Biden He Seemed To Have 'Photographic Recall'David Moye is a journalist with 20 years experience writing on offbeat subjects. He is the former senior editor of Wireless Flash, a news agency that provided The Daily Show, Good Morning America and many other shows with guest booking and news segments.
Read more »

Robert Hur testifies before Congress on Biden classified documents probeRobert Hur testifies before Congress on Biden classified documents probeSpecial Counsel Robert Hur appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to take hours of questions from Republicans and Democrats on his 345-page report.
Read more »

Robert Hur defends his decision not to charge President BidenRobert Hur, in his opening testimony, explains why he declined to recommend charging President Biden for mishandling classified records. He defends his assessment in the report and states that he analyzed the evidence thoroughly.
Read more »



Render Time: 2025-03-13 00:21:22