President Joe Biden’s personal attorney said Sunday he went to both the special counsel and the attorney general to register concerns over what he viewed to be pejorative and unnecessary digs at the president’s memory.

“This is a report that went off the rails,” Bob Bauer said on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday. “It’s a shabby work product.”

The special counsel was investigating whether the president mishandled classified documents during his previous positions as vice president and senator, and found this week that no criminal charges were warranted.

But in building his argument for why no charges were necessary, Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, detailed in part that Biden’s defense of any potential charges could possibly be that: “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Why is the AP leaving out the fact that Robert Hur, who made the report, is a Republican who was brought into the DOJ under Trump?

    You would think they might find that at least a little suspicious.

    • A Phlaming Phoenix
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      8 months ago

      Or that he’s not a psychologist or neurologist, did not administer any kind of formal cognitive examination, and is not qualified to make this kind of claim.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Not to mention that it has nothing to do with the classified documents. It’s not a normal thing for a special counsel to talk about.

      • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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        8 months ago

        So because I’m not a psychologist or neurologist I can’t comment that the 80 year old person that can’t remember the conversation we had 2 minutes ago doesn’t have poor memory and dementia? Really?

        • A Phlaming Phoenix
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          8 months ago

          In an official capacity? No. As a random comment, fine, but in an official report that is the output of your job as a legal expert, no, you’re not qualified to make such a statement.

          • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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            8 months ago

            Why couldn’t it be in an official report? It’s not in there as a medical report, it’s in there as a reason as to why it would be pointless raising any charges. It absolutely should be in an official report as it goes towards how these documents could have been in his possession still - he forgot he even had them.

            • A Phlaming Phoenix
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              8 months ago

              An official report by a qualified person maybe, but not by a court appointed special master whose job is to review documents. Any lawyer will tell you if you’re being deposed you should say “I don’t know” and “I don’t recall” and “I don’t remember.” I’m not saying Biden isn’t old and more frail of mind than a younger person. I’m saying this is not a person who is qualified to make such a claim in an official capacity.

              • Whirlybird@aussie.zone
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                8 months ago

                This persons opinion was used to determine if charges should be brought. The person who charges would be brought against having memory like a sieve plays into that decision.

                Again - you don’t need a medical degree to be able to see when someone has poor memory. It’s easily observable. We can all see that Bidens memory is complete garbage - remember that time when he asked where someone was in the crowd, oblivious to the fact that they died a few months earlier and he attended their funeral?

    • EatATaco
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      8 months ago

      Hur is a Republican, and a former U.S. attorney under Trump.

      “So you have to wonder with those pressures impinging on the investigation from the outside knowing the attacks that Republicans have levied on the law enforcement process, did he decide we would have to ask that we reach the only legal conclusion possible and then toss in the rest of it to placate a certain political constituency?” Bauer asked.

      The Justice Department has not commented on the criticism.

      They explicitly mention it and then quote someone talking about how it’s suspicious.