Latest news with #HurReport
Fox News
28-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Credibility crisis: Press dismissed Hur report on Biden's memory issues long before concerns became undeniable
The press spun, obfuscated and outright dismissed Special Counsel Robert Hur's early 2024 report that stated then-President Joe Biden came off as an elderly man with memory issues well before his declining state emerged as an acceptable topic in the legacy media. Hur, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents, famously concluded he would not bring charges against the then-president, in part because a jury would find him to be a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory." A new book detailing the former president's mental acuity concerns while in office, his prostate cancer diagnosis and the recently-released audio recordings of Biden's interview with Hur reinvigorated the notion that mental acuity concerns were valid. But when the Hur report was initially released in February 2024, months prior to Biden's disastrous presidential debate performance, it made his cognitive decline impossible for the press to ignore, and much of the media rushed to Biden's defense. Hur acknowledged the documents were "willfully" obtained by Biden both as vice president and as a senator, but revealed Biden had a "hazy" memory of when he was previously in office and when his son Beau died. Liberal pundits were often in lockstep to insist the report featured "gratuitous" language or was "editorialized," and Biden attacked reporters who dared to question if he was fit for the job at a last-minute White House press conference following the release of the damning report. Some reporters in the room vexed Biden by asking about his memory and concerns about his age, but left-leaning pundits were in damage-control mode. Jim Acosta, at the time an anchor for CNN, wondered aloud if Hur's assessment was "out of bounds," while CNN commentator Paul Begala peddled claims from Biden officials saying the president was "totally focused" and "very sharp." Jeffrey Toobin appeared on CNN to scold Hur for making "unnecessary points" about Biden's advanced age. "Part of that report was an outrage, it was a disgrace. I mean, the idea that they that he would make such a big point of Biden being elderly is not something a prosecutor needed to do," Toobin said. A panel of MSNBC hosts defended Biden by attacking Hur for injecting "ageism" into his report. "Do you want to get into the age thing? Let's call it what it is. This is ageism snuck into a report clearing the person of any wrongdoing," MSNBC host Ari Melber told viewers during the network's primetime coverage of the breaking news. "If you want to get the ageism, young people are told all the time by their lawyers, 'Hey, you're way better off leaning into I don't recall than possibly misstating something to a federal officer or under oath in this case.' So it's a lot of derogatory stuff," Melber continued. "And I do think, and I want to be clear, a credit to the president that he chose to do fast cooperation. I think that's good for the system. Politically, though, it's now being used against him." His MSNBC colleague Chris Hayes insisted Hur was "frustrated and angry" that he "didn't get more" from his probe into Biden, turning to how age is the "central narrative question here that this all revolves around." "Age is not something you can rebut," Hayes said. "The man is 80 years old… He is the age he is, And so it's a very useful political attack for them." "He rides a bike!" host Rachel Maddow interjected. MSNBC host Katie Phang slammed the "inflammatory, unnecessary and partisan" language used in the report, while network contributor Molly Jong-Fast suggested Hur wasn't a "good faith actor." "He's not a neurologist," Jong-Fast said. Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer complained at the time that the Hur report was a "partisan hit job." CNN's media reporter at the time, Oliver Darcy, insisted that Hur's depiction of Biden's mental state "didn't match reality." The New York Times went with the "Republicans pounce" framing when covering Biden's reported memory issues and ex-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann raged that Hur "should be fired immediately" for offering an "amateur medical opinion." The media lined up high-profile Democrats to defend Biden, too. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" to bash the report as "gratuitous, unnecessary and inaccurate personal remarks." MSNBC's Jen Psaki, a former Biden press secretary, invited then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., onto her program to say Hur would be "disciplined or fired" if he were a typical prosecutor. "What he did was quite deliberate and destructive and also just plain false," Schiff said as Psaki nodded along. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said on CNN, "It was extremely gratuitous, unnecessary and just a political potshot." Journalist Drew Holden posted a lengthy social media thread last week detailing other examples of the media attacking Hur's report, including then-NBC News host Chuck Todd telling viewers it played into the "right-wing noise machine" and USA Today rounding up "sympathetic voices" to dismiss the findings. Holden also put a spotlight on The Washington Post, citing experts who insisted memory losses "are surprisingly normal" and a New York Times report that said Biden appeared "clearheaded" aside from fumbling a few dates. Many longtime Biden allies have since come around after audio obtained by Axios contained clips from several interviews between Biden and Hur related to the probe. On CNN, host Abby Phillip suggested Hur "undersold" the extent of Biden's decline and threw the former president and the Democratic Party "a lifeline." "In a way, Robert Hur kind of undersold this," Phillip said. "He kind of threw Joe Biden a lifeline. It was an opportunity, actually, for Democrats to take it seriously, maybe change gears at that point, maybe give a potential nominee more time." Former Obama spokesperson and political commentator Tommy Vietor wrote last week that critics of Hur's report "weren't totally fair." "[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," Vietor wrote.
Fox News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Ex-Biden DOJ official slams Democratic Party for 'lying to everyone,' blasting cabinet over Hur report
A former Department of Justice official, Xochitl Hinojosa, called out members of the Democratic Party on Tuesday for "lying to everybody" about former President Joe Biden when it came to Robert Hur's report, which was dismissed as "gratuitous" at the time. "I was at the Justice Department at the time when we released the Hur report, and he was, the entire White House infrastructure at the time, was calling the report gratuitous, and said that Rob Hur should have never called him 'a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' And every Democratic pundit, many reporters, were out there saying that it was inappropriate for Rob Hur to say that. And the reality is, the whole reason why he put that in is because it was his whole reason not to prosecute," Hinojosa, who worked as the Director of Public affairs at the DOJ, said during CNN's "NewsNight." Audio from Hur's interview with Biden was released on Friday, and showed the former president struggling with words and key memories during the interview. Axios reporter Alex Thompson was on the panel as well to discuss the reporting about the former president from his new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which he published with CNN host Jake Tapper. "So it's really infuriating to hear this happening in the Spring of 2024, around the time that the Hur report was released and certain aspects in Alex and Jake's reporting really talk about the timeframe being Fall of 2023, whenever he did his interview with Rob Hur, as well as early 2024, when was the release of the report. And so it's just, it's really frustrating, I think as a Democratic Party, hearing now that they were lying to everybody, and not only were they lying to everybody, but they were bashing their own cabinet when it came to the Hur report," Hinojosa added. Biden officials such as Karine Jean-Pierre and Ian Sams, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris and former DHS Secretary Mayorkas, deemed the Hur report "gratuitous" after it was released, because Hur declined to charge the former president over the mishandling of classified documents due to his memory lapses. "The reality is, that report, that part of the report does not live in reality. It just doesn't, it is gratuitous," Jean-Pierre said at the time, responding to a question about Biden's memory. "It is unacceptable and it does not live in reality." Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna, Jamie Raskin, and Daniel Goldman also deemed the report unnecessary and gratuitous at the time. Audio from the interview showed that Biden admitted he kept documents about Afghanistan for "posterity's sake." When asked about a classified document on Afghanistan found at his lake house, Biden said at first he wasn't sure how the document got there, but then admitted, "I guess I wanted to hang on to it for posterity's sake."
Fox News
20-05-2025
- Fox News
The Latest Nail In The Media Coffin
As seen on Gutfeld!, several inmates are still on the run after escaping from a New Orleans jail. Greg shares his thoughts. Plus, tapes from the Hur report have been released. Get a preview of the cover-up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Fox News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Former Obama aide admits attacks against Hur report 'weren't totally fair' after released audio
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.
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
‘Crazy like a fox' Biden shows selective memory in belatedly released special counsel interview
There is a deeper scandal than Biden's cognitive impairment in the belatedly released audio recording of special counsel Robert Hur interviewing the then-president in October 2023 over his illegal retention of classified documents. Hur had Biden cold on the same federal felonies special counsel Jack Smith charged Donald Trump with just four months earlier. In the initial 13-minute segment of the Hur tapes released late Friday, Biden meanders and can't remember crucial dates, reflecting a narrative that supports Hur's convenient conclusion that he was guilty, but unfit for trial: an 'elderly man with a poor memory.' There is a deeper scandal than Biden's cognitive impairment in the belatedly released audio recording of Robert Hur interviewing the then-president over his illegal retention of classified documents, columnist Miranda Devine writes. Getty Images But the full audio paints a different picture: Biden is in command of the facts when it suits him, but grows vague and filibusters every time he perceives the prosecutors are building a trap. Crazy like a fox. His lawyer, Bob Bauer, one of five attorneys nursing him through the interview, interrupts every time Biden might incriminate himself and laughs like a hyena when his client gets feisty or cracks a sarcastic joke at the prosecutors' expense. At one point, Hur says: 'You appear to have a photographic recall,' after Biden spent 12 minutes describing the layout of his house in excruciating detail. You can hear the prosecutors' frustration — they're in a constitutional straitjacket and faced with a five-hour time limit. Biden reminds them out of the gate that he has just got off the phone with Bibi Netanyahu, discussing the Oct. 7 attack on Israel the previous day, to remind them they are keeping him from important business. The bottom line is Biden lies throughout. He denies keeping classified material for his personal use because he's so upright and honorable. Yet prosecutors found reams of it in his house, garage, and Biden-Penn Center office. They had a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer in which Biden said he had 'just found all the classified stuff downstairs' in the basement of his Virginia home. In the interview, not conducted under oath, Biden says he had nothing to do with packing up his vice presidential residence on Jan. 7, 2017, or moving boxes containing classified material to his flashy new digs in Virginia. He claims his staff did it all without his input. But Hur knew Biden was 'personally involved in the move.' 'He selected [the furniture], directed some of the packing, and was personally present for the entirety of the move,' the Hur Report states. 'One military aide recalled seeing him 'packing by himself' and 'just him moving his stuff one at a time into the . . . truck' at the Naval Observatory on moving day, and Secret Service agents saw Mr. Biden 'moving boxes' at the 'Virginia house' during the weekend of his move into that house.' They had caught him red-handed. But now they were faced with a dilemma: Do they find the sitting president criminally liable and label him a pathological liar, causing a massive scandal and constitutional crisis? Or do they use his age and mental fog as an excuse not to charge him? Pretty clear which was the easier path.
