Prosecutor says Biden did not remember when he was vice president or when his son died

There will be no criminal charges, but there will be a serious political blow. Special prosecutor Robert Hur has ruled out filing an indictment to charge the president of the United States, Joe Biden, in the case of the classified papers, but the 388 page report that he has delivered to Congress portrays him in a very graphic way as an octogenarian whose memory fails, who does not remember when his son died or when he was vice president. He comes to suggest that if he does not accuse Biden it is because a jury would be embarrassed to convict him in his mental state. All of these messages are devastating and affect what the surveys indicate as Biden's weak point in running for re-election: his age.

“Mr. Biden's memory also appeared to have significant limitations,” the report says on page numbered 207, which describes recordings from 2017 about Afghanistan in which conversations “are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember the events and sometimes struggling to read and relate his own notes in the notebook.”

“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse,” the report continues on the next page, speaking of the current tenant of the White House, who was Barack Obama's vice president between 2009 and 2017. “He did not remember when it was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was in 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 several years later, when his son Beau died. And his memory seemed confused when describing the debate about Afghanistan, which in his day was so important to him,” he adds.

Somehow, although the prosecutor refuses to file charges against the president, he does so because he believes that a jury would believe that he does not have full powers and would choose to acquit him. Although it is not the only argument to exonerate him, it not only contaminates the others, but is almost a disqualification of his ability to occupy the most powerful position in the world: “It is likely that Mr. Biden will appear before the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a nice, well-intentioned, elderly man with a bad memory. Although he is and should be held accountable for his actions—he is, after all, the president of the United States—based on our direct observations of him, Mr. Biden is someone for whom many jurors will want to seek 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 crime that requires a voluntary state of mind,” the report says on pages 219 and 220.

It is the policy of the Department of Justice not to seek the indictment of sitting presidents. It is considered that it is Congress, through impeachment, that should be in charge of politically judging a president in office and, if necessary, removing him. Criminal accusations, on the other hand, have a place for former presidents (although Donald Trump, accused in four cases of 91 crimes, claims immunity and that discussion can reach the Supreme Court.

For this reason, the prosecutor's report refers to the hypothetical accusation of the investigated person as a former president. Biden is the first octogenarian president in US history. He will end his current term at the age of 82 and if he is re-elected in the elections on November 5, his presidency would last in principle until he is 86 years old.

A poll published last August by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found three in four Americans think the president is too old to serve another term. And when asked what words come to mind if they think of him, “old”, “slow”, “clumsy” or “sleepy” predominate, the nickname given to him by his predecessor.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden's age was already an issue to consider. When asked as a candidate if he planned to be a one-term president, he avoided committing to it: “It's legitimate for people to ask about my age. It's the same question I was asked when I was 29 years old. [fue elegido senador con esa edad], if he was old enough for the position. I hope to be able to demonstrate that with age comes wisdom and experience that allows us to do things much better,” he replied.

However, Biden himself defined himself during the campaign as “a transitional candidate.” Because of his age, he gave greater importance than usual to his election for the vice presidency, which after a long wait fell to Kamala Harris. There was speculation that whoever occupied that position would run for president in 2024, once Biden had repaired the damage done by Donald Trump to the institutions and attenuated — that was his intention — the political polarization that the country was experiencing. That did not happen and Biden has once again seen himself as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Trump.

Biden has chosen to downplay age and has even decided to repeatedly mock himself regarding his age. Surely, the special prosecutor's report did not please him very much.

Follow all the international information on Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.