2024-02-08 14:00:23
You remember Uncle Leo from Seinfeld, whose defense to shoplifting was “I’m an old man, I’m confused.”
Didn’t work for him in the bookstore, but it worked for Joe Biden in the Special Counsel investigation into his deliberate retention of classified documents.
Special counsel Robert Hur has declined to prosecute President Joe Biden for his handling of classified documents, but said Biden’s practices “present serious risks to national security” and added that Biden portrayed himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory” who would be sympathetic to a jury.
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report said, but added that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” ….
Hur’s report included several shocking lines about Biden’s memory, which the report said “was significantly limited” during his 2023 interviews with the special counsel. Biden’s age and presentation would make it more difficult to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the now-81-year-old was guilty of willfully committing a crime.
“We have also considered that, at trial, 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,” it said. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Later in the report, the special counsel said that the president’s memory was “worse” during an interview with him than it was in recorded conversations from 2017.
“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report said.
Biden also had difficulty remembering the timing of his son Beau’s death, as well as a debate about Afghanistan.
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report said.
You can read the full report here.
Yes, of course it reeks of hypocrisy vis-a-vis Trump. I taped a segment on Jesse Kelly show that will run tonight pointing out the one obvious difference in the cases, that there’s no allegation Biden played hide-and-seek with the documents once the feds sought them (which is the allegation against Trump in the Florida case, which I have long argued is his most serious risk). But still, it’s hard not to see that in the Trump records case the feds did their best to find a reason to indict him, whereas in the Biden records case they did their best to find a reason not to indict Biden — including the Uncle Leo Defense.
I don’t know which is worse, that they let Biden off or that we have an “elderly man with a poor memory” in the Oval Office.
UPDATE:
Apparently Joey Bananas had a press conference tonight in reaction to the Special Counsel report, but I missed it.
Here’s how people are reacting:
As Joe Biden was walking out of his press conference tonight, he decided to walk back in and proceeded to
1. Claim the Israeli response to Hamas has been over the top
2. Call Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, “the president of Mexico” pic.twitter.com/QFTClsICxA— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) February 9, 2024
Live footage of Biden’s press conference pic.twitter.com/xnllEKiIrq
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 9, 2024
After this embarrassing public Jeffrey Toobin press conference, I think it’s pretty clear that there is no way Biden is ever going to drop out of this race in favor of a candidate who might be able to win. He’s stupid. He’s a narcissist. He’s senile. And he’s an asshole who…
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) February 9, 2024
Joe Biden is clearly a wounded political animal on defense. That is the only reason to call an uncharacteristically late night press conference. What we just watched at the White House was an unmitigated disaster. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/OFHQAG1vSI
— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) February 9, 2024
To say this press conference was only a disaster is the understatement of the year.
Biden’s candidacy is finished. And rest assured, the power brokers are already well into Plan B, if they weren’t already… https://t.co/dbVOslbrb9
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) February 9, 2024
MEANWHILE
This is what much of America, who didn’t watch the press conference, will hear:
MSNBC panel suggests Biden couldn’t tell the Special Counsel the years he was Vice President due to attorney’s advice
You can’t make this up
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 9, 2024
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