Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Sunday that details about President Biden’s memory in the special counsel report on the president’s handling of classified documents were “gratuitous, superfluous statements.”
Special counsel Robert Hur released a 388-page report last Thursday that concluded Biden “willfully” retained classified documents but cleared Biden of any wrongdoing. The report also featured details about the 81-year-old’s memory and recall, describing the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Hur’s report claimed Biden did not remember “even within several years” when his son Beau died or when his vice presidential term ended.
“What I don’t think is correct — and I think the vast majority of legal experts agree with me on this — is [the] gratuitous, superfluous statements about his memory, not as it relates to this particular case or the facts relating to the handling of classified documents,” Bharara said Sunday in an interview with ABC News’s “This Week.”
“But as it relates to other things, including memory about the particular date and precise date of his son’s death that had no place in this document,” he added.
Bharara contended the detail “makes no sense” in the report.
“In a context in which you appointed special counsel to be above politics and away from politics, he’s provided political grist to the opponents of Joe Biden, as a matter of politics,” he added.
Biden lashed out at Hur during a Thursday press conference at the White House, saying, “How in the hell dare he raise that. 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,” Biden added.
Vice President Harris similarly slammed the report as “politically motivated” last Friday.
“As a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate,” Harris told reporters when asked about Hur’s report.