Democrats were on the offensive in the aftermath of the Justice Department’s report about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents after his vice presidency, taking particular umbrage with special counsel Robert Hur’s comments about his memory and mental acuity.
Republicans, on the other hand, seized upon the opportunity to declare the Democratic president unfit for office as he seeks another term in the White House.
They also used the opportunity to try and paint a picture of a double standard between Biden’s case, which Hur declared was not warranting of criminal charges, and that of former President Donald Trump, who faces 40 felony charges for alleged mishandling of classified documents — though there are key differences in the two cases, namely in that the Republican also faces charges for allegedly trying to hamper the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
The report puts the president’s age into the spotlight, a concern among voters, per recent polling, as he makes his case for reelection this fall in a likely rematch against Trump — who despite being only three years Biden’s junior and committing gaffes of his own, does not appear to have the same level of scrutiny from voters on that issue.
In the report, Hur wrote that in a possible trial, “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden fired back at an impromptu press conference on Thursday evening, declaring that his “memory is fine,” though a gaffe he committed in his comments about the Israel-Hamas war likely did little to quell those concerns. He also took particular umbrage with the report claiming that Biden had trouble remembering details surrounding the death of his son, Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, from brain cancer in 2015.
“I don’t need anyone, anyone, to remind me when he passed away,” Biden said angrily. “How the hell dare he raise that. Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, was it any of their damn business?”
Biden also sought to emphasize that he sat for hours of interviews in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which quickly shifted to all-out war in Gaza: “The simple truth is that I sat for five hours, two days, over events going back 40 years. At the same time I was managing a national crisis.”
Biden’s lawyers also disputed the portion of Hur’s report about Biden’s memory, saying it “uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.”
“The inappropriate criticisms of the President’s memory are inaccurate, gratuitous, and wrong,” Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, wrote on social media.
The president’s fellow Democrats rushed to his defense, with Connecticut Sen. Chris Blumenthal telling HuffPo that “there’s certainly no crime in being a well-meaning elderly man.”
Of Hur, Blumenthal charged that he appeared to overstep his mandate as special counsel, telling the outlet that his role was “to judge whether a crime was committed,” not to “speculate on what the jury would do, not to speculate on how full or sharp Joe Biden's mind is.”
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons told the outlet that the report “went a little far.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said that Hur’s report “contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing DOJ traditions.”
“Had this report been been subject to a normal DOJ review these remarks would undoubtedly have been excised,” Holder wrote on social media.
Some critics pointed out Hur’s ties to Republican officials. He was a clerk for the late William Rehnquist, a staunch conservative who was nominated by Richard Nixon to the Supreme Court and, later, tapped by Ronald Reagan to succeed Warren Burger as Chief Justice. In 2017, Hur was appointed by Biden’s predecessor, then-President Trump, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, a role he held until 2021.
During a Democratic press call on Friday, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman called Hur a “Trump appointee” and accused him of having an “agenda.”
“The president was very clear that he is absolutely in full control,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said, later charging that Hur’s report “was just a smear and cheap shots and just taking things out of context.”
“Clearly there is an agenda there, and what's true is that the president now is going to be our guy,” Fetterman added. “And he has done an incredible job.”
New York Rep. Dan Goldman told ABC News that he believes “what everyone will soon realize is that this is a Republican special counsel who completely went out of his way to editorialize, to include material in his report that it unnecessary and irrelevant to what he was tasked with doing.”
Goldman went on to charge that Hur put “something in there to help his fellow Republicans” because he wanted to avoid Trump’s ire because he did not recommend criminal charges against Biden.
Jim Messina, who ran President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, compared the situation to FBI Director James Comey announcing he was reopening a probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails 11 days before the 2016 presidential election.
“Let's be clear--the special counsel isn't a dummy and we should be very careful not to take the bait after Comey pulled this in 2016,” Messina charged in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Hur, a lifelong Republican and creature of DC, didn't have a case against Biden, but he knew exactly how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.”
Longtime Democratic strategist Stephanie Cutter, another Obama administration and campaign alumni, appeared to concur with Messina’s assessment, charging that “Hur knew exactly what he was doing here.”
“To provide political cover for himself for not prosecuting, he gratuitously leveled a personal (not legal) charge against the president that he absolutely knows is a gift to Trump,” Cutter charged in a post on X. “And, guess what we are all talking about? NOT that the president cooperated, self-reported, testified for two days, and otherwise did the right thing A jury would be hugely sympathetic to a president who respects the law. That’s why he’s not prosecuting. But, too hard for a Trump appointee to throw himself before the wrath and fury of Trump.”
President Biden’s Republican critics were quick to make the case for a double-standard between the Trump and Biden classified documents probes, and at least one member of the GOP called for his removal from office.
While Trump -- who was coming off of a victory in Nevada's caucuses on Thursday night -- mainly sought to point out the disparity in his facing felony charges for allegedly mishandling classified documents while his opponent will not, he shared posts on his Truth Social platform from several GOP allies in Congress, including Florida Rep. Greg Steube, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn questioning the Democratic president's mental fitness.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the last remaining candidate running against Trump for the Republican nomination, used the opportunity to attack both presidential frontrunners.
"It is unbelievably disturbing that they are showing that they see Biden to not have a good memory, that they see him as diminished, that they see that it’s a problem, and they point-blank say that,” Haley said on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday night. “This is actually dangerous.”
“People make fun of the fact that I say we need to have mental competency tests,” before citing polling that says Americans don’t want a Trump-Biden rematch in November. “The party that gets rid of their 80-year-old candidate is gonna be the party that wins.”
In a post on social media, Haley called on Biden to “take a mental competency test immediately” and share those results with the American public.
House Republican Leadership, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a statement that the findings from Hur’s report about Biden’s memory are “disturbing.”
“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” they wrote.
Several House Republicans, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson all echoed the message that they believe Biden to be “unfit” for office.
“The Special Counsel’s report and Biden’s embarrassing press conference last night make clear: He should either resign as unfit or face criminal prosecution,” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wrote on social media. “Can’t have it both ways.”
New York Rep. Claudia Tenney sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Hur as special counsel to lead the probe into Biden, urging the Cabinet to “explore” using the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to remove the Democratic president from office.
“It is incumbent upon you to explore proceedings to remove the President pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution," Tenney wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News. "President Biden needs to be charged, or he needs to be removed. There is no middle ground.”
"After concluding that President Biden knowingly and willfully removed, mishandled, and disclosed classified documents repeatedly over a period of decades, Mr. Hur nevertheless recommended that charges not be brought against him," she wrote in the letter. "Special Counsel's reasoning was alarming. He recited numerous instances in which President Biden exhibited dramatically compromised mental faculties and concluded that a jury would be likely to perceive President Biden as a sympathetic and forgetful old man.”