President Biden lashed out Thursday at the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents after the prosecutor in his final report noted Biden struggled to remember details such as when his son, Beau, died.
“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said in remarks from the White House responding to the report. “Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.
“I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,” he added.
Special counsel Robert Hur released a 388-page report earlier Thursday that concluded Biden “willfully” retained classified documents, but declined to bring any charges. The report also offered a stark assessment of the 81-year-old’s memory and abilities to recall information.
“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” Hur wrote. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended … and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began. … He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.”
Biden asserted he was fully transparent with Hur’s investigation. He noted he sat for a five-hour interview with Hur’s team over two days on events that spanned roughly 40 years.
“Their task was to make a decision whether to move forward in this case. … That’s his job, and they decided not to move forward,” Biden said, adding that other conclusions about his memory had “no place in this report.”
The president’s team has fiercely defended his memory in the wake of the report’s release.
“It is one thing to observe President Biden’s memory as being ‘significantly limited’ on certain subjects. It is quite another to use the more sweeping and highly prejudicial language employed later in the report,” White House special counsel Richard Sauber and personal attorney Bob Bauer wrote to Hur in a letter sent Monday.
“This language is not supported by the facts, nor is it appropriately used by a federal prosecutor in this context,” they added. “We request that you revisit your descriptions of President Biden’s memory and revise them so that they are stated in a manner that is within the bounds of your expertise and remit.”
Biden would be 86 at the end of a potential second term. The president has said it is fair for voters to consider his age, but he and his team have stressed that he should be judged on his record of achievements while in office.
He became angry at one point during his remarks at questions by reporters about voters’ consistent concerns about his age.
An NBC News poll published this week found 76 percent of voters, including 54 percent of Democrats, said they had major or moderate concerns when asked whether Biden has “the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.”
His likely opponent, former President Trump, is 77 and has, like Biden, had issues with confusing world leaders in recent months. Trump’s allies seized on the Hur report Thursday to argue Biden was unfit for office.