The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) will not bring criminal charges against President Joe Biden's retention of classified documents due to his mental "limitations."
The report, released by special counsel Robert K. Hur, found evidence that Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen." However, the DOJ will not seek criminal charges against the president because he was not in a "mental state of willfulness."
The report cited interviews in which Biden participated with writer Mark Zwonitzer in 2017 that indicated Biden's memory "appeared to have significant limitations" and his "recorded conversations with Zwonitzer ... are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries."
The report goes on to state: Biden doesn’t remember his time as VP? But somehow he’s qualified to be President for another 4 years? … https://t.co/2jloBjcOZyIn his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 8, 2024
Evidence against Biden includes marked classified documents regarding military foreign policy in Afghanistan, as well as notebooks containing entries in Biden's handwriting about national security, foreign policy, and sensitive information on intelligence sources and methods. The evidence was discovered in Biden's garage, offices, and basement of his Wilmington, Delaware home by FBI agents.
"We conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," reads the report, which states Biden viewed himself as a "historic figure" as his reasoning to retain classified documents.
While working with a ghostwriter on his 2017 memoir, Biden said he "just found all the classified stuff downstairs" in a Virginia home he was renting at the time.
"When he served as vice president and when the Afghanistan documents were found in Mr. Biden's Delaware garage in 2022, his possession of them in his Delaware home was not a basis for prosecution because as vice president and president, he had authority to keep classified documents in his home," the report continued. "Mr. Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after. This could convince some reasonable jurors that he did not retain them willfully."
The report also stated Biden's memory was "significantly limited" during his time interviewing with the ghostwriter in 2017 along with a separate interview with the DOJ in 2023.
"His cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully — that is, with intent to break the law — as the statute requires," the report stated. "Mr. Biden might not have retained the classified Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home at all. They could have been stored, by mistake and without his knowledge, at his Delaware home since the time he was vice president, as were other classified documents recovered during our investigation."
The report further cited Biden's "limited precision and recall" during his interviews:In addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for the documents that we cannot refute. When Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter he "just found all the classified stuff downstairs," he could have been referring to something other than the Afghanistan documents, and our report discusses these possibilities in detail. We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.
"We conclude the evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to recommend prosecution of Mr. Biden for his retention of the classified Afghanistan documents," the report stated.
Biden also warned his ghostwriter that some of the entries in his notebooks may contain classified information, though read the entries aloud verbatim to the ghostwriter. The report also noted while vice president, Biden kept his notebooks in a White House safe, though placed them in unlocked drawers in his house after leaving office.
"He had strong motivations to do so and to ignore the rules for properly handling the classified information in his notebooks," the report reads. "He consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part."
The report found Biden did not intend to "do something the law forbids," believing his notebooks to be personal property.
"Every president before me has done the exact same thing," Biden told the DOJ per the report, also citing former President Ronald Reagan who similarly kept classified information in his diaries at his private home after his time in office.
"Mr. Biden's lapses in attention and vigilance demonstrate why former officials should not keep classified materials unsecured at home and read them aloud to others, but jurors could well conclude that Mr. Biden's actions were unintentional," the report concludes.
Editor's Note: The previous title of this article, "DOJ Will Not Seek Criminal Charges Against Biden Due to His Mental Stability," has been revised to more accurately reflect the exact language of the DOJ report
