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The special counsel who spent a year investigating the discovery of classified material at President Joe Biden’s former office and Delaware home will appear on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to explain his decision to decline prosecuting the president.
That key recommendation – that Biden not be prosecuted for his handling of material when he was a private citizen – was overshadowed when Hur released his report in February because the special counsel described the president as a sympathetic elderly man with memory problems. Biden fired back against Hur’s note that he was not charged in part because a jury could potentially see him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
“I am well-meaning. And I’m an elderly man. And I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden said.
Hur’s testimony will provide Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee an opportunity to explore the special counsel’s perceptions of Biden and his memory lapses. But GOP lawmakers are also likely to argue there is a double standard between the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for mishandling classified data and the decision by Hur not to prosecute Biden. More on that below.
Hur was appointed by Trump as US attorney in Maryland in 2017. During his tenure as a federal prosecutor, which ended in 2021, he prosecuted Baltimore’s then-mayor, Catherine Pugh, in a scandal involving sales of her children’s book. In 2023, Hur was brought back from private practice and appointed to investigate the discovery of classified material at Biden’s former office and Delaware home by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The selection of a Trump-appointed former US attorney was meant to help inoculate the…
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