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Special Counsel Robert Hur, who decided not to indict President Joe Biden for retaining classified documents after his time as Vice President, testified about his report on Capital Hill on Tuesday (March 12).
Hur defended his report and the decision not to indict Biden even though there was evidence he "willfully retained" classified material. Hur cited Biden's memory problems as one reason why convincing a jury to convict him would be difficult.
"My assessment in the report about the relevance of the President's memory was necessary, accurate, and fair," Hur said. "Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors to perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the President unfairly. I explained to the attorney general my decision and the reasons for it. That's what I was required to do."
Hur also testified that Biden shared that classified material with Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of his books Promises to Keep and Promise Me, Dad.
"Mr. Biden sometimes skipped over presumptively classified material and warned his ghostwriter the entries might be classified, but at least three times Mr. Biden read from classified entries aloud to his ghostwriter nearly verbatim," Hur wrote in his report.
The report also noted that Zwonitzer deleted the audio recordings once he learned of the special counsel investigation.
"What did that ghostwriter do with the information Joe Biden shared with him on his laptop, what did he do after you were named special counsel?" House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan asked Hur.
"He slid those files into the recycle bin on his computer," Hur replied.
"He tried to destroy the evidence, didn't he?" Jordan asked
"Correct," said Hur.
Jordan then noted that Biden earned $8 million from the book deal and suggested that Biden has a financial incentive to keep and share those classified documents.
"Pride and money is why he knowingly violated the rules,' Jordan said." 'The oldest motives in the book, pride and money. Do you agree with that?"
"That language does appear in the report, and we did identify evidence supporting those assessments," Hur answered.