Former Obama aide admits attacks against Hur report 'weren't totally fair' after released audio

Fox News

20-05-2025

Former Obama spokesperson and political commentator Tommy Vietor wrote Saturday that critics of Special Counsel Robert Hur's report on former President Joe Biden "weren't totally fair."
Vietor shared revelations on social media about a new book by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," and called Hur's report the most interesting context for the book.
Though he originally considered Hur's comments about Biden being an "elderly man with a poor memory" to be "Jim Comey-style inappropriate editorializing about a non-charging decision," Vietor said the book changed his mind.
"[T]he book made me realize how important that context was for Hur in explaining his decision NOT to charge Biden, and I now feel that many of the attacks on Hur, including by me, weren't totally fair," Vietor wrote.
He added that he still believed the situation around Biden's memory was "complicated" but that "clearly Biden was experiencing cognitive decline."
"The just-released audio clearly shows a guy who should not be running for reelection. It also shows a man who is exhausted because the October 7th attacks had just happened. And the broader context is a very scary and politically devastating law enforcement interview. It's just messy and terrible all around," Vietor wrote.
Vietor was originally one of many Democratic critics of the Hur report after it was released last year, going as far as to call Hur's claim that Biden couldn't remember when his son died an "outrageous lie" and "cruel."
"Hur's claim that Biden couldn't remember the day his son died was an outrageous lie. It's also cruel & irrelevant. Anyone who has experienced loss like that can remember images, smells, bit of conversations. The pain is burned into you. Dates blend together bc they're irrelevant," Vietor wrote.
Vietor revealed last month on "Pod Save America" that he had read an early copy of the book and described the details at the time as "enraging." Since then, he has said he had no interest in hearing from Biden anymore.
Released audio from Biden's interview with Hur was reported by Axios on Saturday. The audio showed the president struggling with key memories, including when his son Beau died, when he left the vice presidency and why he had classified documents he shouldn't have had.
When asked by Hur about where he kept papers he was actively working on around 2017 and 2018, Biden said that Beau Biden was either "deployed or is dying" at that time. Beau died in 2015. At one point, Biden said to himself "When did Beau die?" and a lawyer answered that it was 2015.