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Tensions rose in Congress on Tuesday when special counsel Robert Hur testified in connection with the investigation into Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents.
During the heated exchange, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) criticized Hur for the language used in the Justice Department report, which he claimed was biased against Biden.
Hur, who released a comprehensive 345-page report last month, found in her investigation that classified documents were stored haphazardly at the Penn Biden Center and President Biden's Delaware residence.
“My team and I conducted a thorough, independent investigation. We identified evidence that the President knowingly possessing classified materials “After the end of his vice presidency, when he was a private citizen,” Hur said in his opening statement.
“This evidence includes an audio-recorded conversation during which Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter that he “just got all the classified stuff down there.” When Mr. Biden said this, he was a private citizen talking to his ghostwriter in his private rental home in Virginia. “We also identified other recorded conversations during which Mr. Biden read classified information aloud to his ghostwriter,” he said.
Biden was not charged with having his ghostwriter read classified information because jurors could conclude that his actions were “unintentional.” Additionally, the Justice Department defended not bringing charges against Biden because he “sympathetic, well-intentioned, elderly person with poor memory,
My report represents my best effort to explain why I declined to recommend impeachment of President Biden.
“My job was to determine whether the President “willfully” retained or disclosed national defense information – that is, knowingly and with the intent to do something that the law prohibited. I do this without assessing the President's mental state. Couldn't make a decision. For that reason, I had to consider the president's memory and overall mental state, and how a jury would interpret his memory and mental state in a criminal trial,” Hur said.
Schiff, condemned by his colleagues for misleading the entire country about Trump-Russia collusion, accused Hurr of making a “political choice” by releasing a report he deemed highly biased toward Joe Biden.
Schiff argued that Hur could have lied and presented the findings in a less damaging way to Biden, especially since Biden was not “accused”.
“What you wrote was extremely prejudicial to the interests of the President. You say it was not political, and yet you must have understood, you must have understood what the impact of your words would be. You must have understood the impact of your decision to go beyond the specifics, to any particular document, to the very general, to your personal, biased, subjective opinion of the President, which you knew was enhanced by his political opponent. You knew it would affect the political campaign. You have to understand this. And you did it anyway,” said a frustrated Schiff.
In his defense, Hur reiterated the scope of his duty, which was to prepare a comprehensive report. He rejected the notion that his intention was to bias the subject of the investigation or influence the political outcome.
“What you are suggesting is that I need to provide a different version of my report that would be suitable for public release. There is no such thing anywhere in the rules. I had to prepare a confidential report that was comprehensive and thorough…” Hur said.
Schiff responded, “What's in the rules, Mr. Hur, is that you don't do things that unduly prejudicially prejudge the subject of the investigation when you're declining to prosecute.”
“You don't unnecessarily add language that you know will be useful to a political campaign. You were not born yesterday. You understood exactly what you were doing. This was an option. You certainly didn't need to include that language,'' he said.
Schiff was angry that Hur had told the truth in his report.