President Joe Biden has found himself under increased scrutiny after the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report related to his investigation of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. The findings of the report rippled through the airwaves and interwebs, even though Hur did not recommend charges against the president.
At the heart of the matter is Hur’s focus on Biden’s age and mental acuity. With polling showing that American voters are increasingly concerned about the president’s fitness for office (or lack thereof), Team Biden is rightly concerned about how the investigation could affect his chances of winning re-election.
The president’s aides are reportedly working to form a strategy to counter the narratives coming from Hur’s report. Team Biden is caught in a precarious strategic dilemma, weighing the benefits of transparency against the possible fallout. “Biden aides anticipate a lengthy partisan clash over the transcript,” NBC News reported.
Biden’s aides anticipate a lengthy partisan clash over the transcript, and possibly the audio recording, that would keep the president on the defensive over questions about his mental fitness as he campaigns for re-election, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The interview was a far more freewheeling discussion than what was detailed in Hur’s report, these people said.
They said Biden’s team is now weighing how to best position him to weather the protracted fallout from Hur’s report, which described the president as “an elderly man with a poor memory” and pointed to his answers in the interview as evidence.
The internal discussions among Biden aides have focused on how the transcript of his interview might help him versus hurt him politically when it comes to voters’ concerns about his age, the people familiar with the discussions said.
Another consideration is whether it would make strategic sense to release the entire transcript or — to the extent that full disclosure is avoidable — to publicize specific moments in the interview to help push back on questions about Biden’s handling of classified materials or mental fitness, the people familiar with the discussions said.
They said no final decisions have been made on an approach.
House Republicans are making the situation even more tricky for the Biden administration by demanding that the Justice Department release the transcripts and recordings of the president’s interview with Hur.
The Committee issued a Monday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and put a deadline on their request.
A trio of House committees investigating President Biden are asking the Justice Department to turn over transcripts and recordings of his interviews with special counsel Robert Hur following the release of a report critical of Biden’s cognitive abilities while reviewing his handling of classified documents.
The request, sent in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, echoes GOP leaders critical of the Justice Department’s conclusion of the report, complaining Biden received more favorable treatment than that of his 2024 campaign rival, former President Trump.
“The Committee on the Judiciary requires these documents for its ongoing oversight of the Department’s commitment to impartial justice and its handling of the investigation and prosecution of President Biden’s presumptive opponent, Donald J. Trump, in the November 2024 presidential election,” wrote the chairs of the three committees.
They asked for the information by Feb. 19.
This development is part of the overall discussion about Biden’s age and mental issues. Critics have highlighted the special counsel’s portrayal of the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Of course, Biden had already given the nation plenty of reasons to doubt his mental acuity, but the fact that an investigation further demonstrates his age issues only exacerbates the problem for Team Biden.
While it is unclear how Team Biden will respond to the revelations brought to light in Hur’s report, it is obvious that they will have an uphill battle if they want to assure voters that the president is still up to the task.