Latest news with #MerrickGarland
Fox News
6 days ago
- 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.
Reuters
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Former US Attorney General Garland joins law firm Arnold & Porter
May 23 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is returning to private practice and joining law firm Arnold & Porter as a partner, the firm said on Friday. Garland, who worked at the Washington, D.C.-based firm earlier in his career, will join its appellate and Supreme Court practice. Democratic President Joe Biden nominated Garland as attorney general in 2021, when Garland was serving as chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Barack Obama nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, but the Republican-controlled Senate at the time refused to hold hearings on the nomination. Garland was not available for comment. In a statement, he said Arnold & Porter is "where I first learned how to be a lawyer and about the important role lawyers can play in ensuring the rule of law." Since Republican President Donald Trump returned to office in January, U.S. Department of Justice leaders have expelled or sidelined dozens of career officials who typically remain in their posts across administrations and scaled back enforcement in many traditional areas of focus. The department under Trump has emphasized immigration-related cases and begun to pursue prosecutions and investigations of public officials viewed as being opposed to Trump's agenda. Trump has also issued orders penalizing prominent law firms he accused of "weaponizing" the legal system against him and his allies. Arnold & Porter was one of only a few large firms that signed onto court briefs backing the law firms that have sued the Trump administration challenging executive orders Trump issued against them. The 1,000-lawyer firm has partnered with advocacy groups to sue over Trump's bid to end automatic birthright citizenship in the United States.
Fox News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden's woes converge: Last-minute pardons under fire, calls for prosecution mount following Hur tape release
The release of audio recordings of former President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur have intensified criticism of the administration's use of an autopen on official presidential orders and pardons. The damning tapes, which bring Biden's alarming mental decline into sharp relief, were kept under wraps by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland. Now that Biden's cognitive problems have been bared, some are calling for Garland to face prosecution for rejecting Congressional demands to release the tapes when he ran the Department of Justice (DOJ). "Key decisions made in the final days of the Biden presidency, including using autopens to issue blanket pardons for the Biden Crime Family, must be fully examined. There are serious concerns that President Biden lacked the mental capacity to authorize those actions," House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., posted to X on Saturday. Axios released hours of Biden's interview with the special counsel's office on Saturday – a year and a half after the interviews were held across a two-day period in the fall of 2023. The recordings showed the former president tripping over his words, slurring sentences, taking long pauses between answers and struggling to remember key moments in his life, including the year his son Beau Biden died of cancer. The recordings have further bolstered conservative outrage stretching back years that Biden's mental acuity had cratered and that the Delaware Democrat who had served in the Senate for decades had become a "shadow" of himself and was unfit to lead the country as president. The flurry of pardons Biden allegedly signed by autopen in the waning days of his administration included ones for his son Hunter Biden, his siblings and their spouses, retired Gen. Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview on Sunday that he has long sounded the alarm over the validity of Biden's pardons, as many lacked specifically what charges an individual was protected against. Instead, many of the pardons outlined blanket protections, such as preemptively pardoning Milley and Fauci from potential prosecution and blanket pardons for unidentified members of Congress who served on the J6 select committee. "I've been long of the position that the pardons, many of the pardons, are not valid based on the fact that they don't pardon anything. It's just a pardon for conduct that's unnamed … it's further confirmation that the pardons are not valid," said Fitton, who had sued for the release of the audio recordings. "A competent president would say, 'How is it I could pardon someone for nothing?'" he continued. Fitton added that "more importantly, Biden should still be prosecuted" after he was "mollycoddled" by the Biden DOJ during the investigation into the documents he possessed from his days in the Senate and when he served as vice president. "The audio shows he was mollycoddled by the Justice Department, you know, because Hur was working for the Justice Department. … There's an argument that the records he had as vice president, he could have. But that wasn't the position of Justice Department. But certainly he didn't have the right to have those records from his days of the Senate," Fitton said. President Donald Trump railed on Truth Social that the release of the audio recordings revealed a "bigger scandal" about the use of an autopen under the Biden White House. "Whoever had control of the "AUTOPEN" is looking to be a bigger and bigger scandal by the moment," Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday. He added: "THIS IS WHY THE UNSELECT COMMITTEE OF POLITICAL THUGS, WHO WERE GIVEN A FULL AND COMPLETE PARDON BY THE PERSON WHO WIELDED THE NOW ILLEGALLY USED AUTOPEN, DELETED AND DESTROYED ALL EVIDENCE AND INFORMATION FROM THEIR CORRUPT AND VICIOUS WITCH HUNT AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHER PEOPLE, WHOSE LIVES WERE COMPLETELY SHATTERED AND DESTROYED BY THIS HISTORICALLY CRIMINAL EVENT." Autopen signatures are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature. The conservative Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration's use of an autopen earlier this year and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden's signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature. The reports led to speculation that Biden aides had approved of executive orders and sweeping pardons, not the president. Hur led an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents following his departure as vice president under the Obama administration. Hur announced in February 2024 that he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, citing that Biden is "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." Although a transcript was released, the White House asserted executive privilege over releasing recordings after Garland urged the administration not to release the recordings, according to a letter obtained by Fox News in May of last year. "The audio recordings of your interview and Mr. Zwonitzer's interview fall within the scope of executive privilege. Production of these recordings to the Committees would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department's ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal investigations--in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important," Garland wrote in a letter to Biden last year, justifying why the recordings should not be released. Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OH, subpoenaed the Department of Justice in February 2024 for the recordings and other materials related to the interview and investigation, but to no avail. The House voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress over the matter in June 2024. Comer announced on Friday that his committee will continue "its investigation into the cover-up of Biden's mental decline and use of autopen" and the use of the pen when Biden pardoned members of his family. "The American people deserve to know who was actually calling the shots in the Biden White House, because it wasn't Joe Biden. His mental decline was obvious to anyone paying attention. But instead of being honest, the Biden Administration, Democrats in Congress, and the legacy media lied and covered it up. They gaslit the American people while propping up a man who was unfit to lead," Comer said in a press release on Friday, noting that Garland "defied" a subpoena to release the recordings. "Key decisions made in the final days of the Biden presidency, including using autopens to issue blanket pardons for the Biden Crime Family, must be fully examined. There are serious concerns that President Biden lacked the mental capacity to authorize those actions. The American people are done being lied to. We're going to bring the truth into the light, and starting next week, those involved in the cover-up will begin to be put on notice," Comer said in a statement on Friday. The recordings "demonstrate that Biden was completely out of it, and we already found documents that the Biden White House had changed the transcript, edited it to hide this. This is what they were hiding. There's got to be accountability. Garland should be prosecuted by the Attorney General over the contempt he had for Congress to hide this," Fitton said on Fox News last week. Fox News host Mark Levin said Garland "should be forced to testify before Congress under oath" over the alleged cover-up of Biden's health. "Former Attorney General Garland heard these recordings and used lies and deceit to prevent them from being released to the American people before the Democrats nominated Biden. He should be forced to testify before Congress under oath and held to account for his grotesque abuse of power," Levin posted to X. Hours before Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, the White House announced pardons for both Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Less than a half an hour before Trump became president, Biden pardoned members of his family, including his brother James B. Biden, sister Valerie Biden Owens, brother-in-law John T. Owens and brother Francis W. Biden. The former president had previously issued a "full and unconditional pardon" to his adult son, Hunter Biden, after he was convicted in two separate federal cases last year. Hunter Biden's pardon covered a 10-year period, between 2014 to 2024, for any offenses he may have committed. "I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny, and they need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that's used correctly. So, I do think we're going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did. And if they're null and void," Ed Martin said in his final press conference while serving as acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Trump claimed on Truth Social in March that Biden's pardons were "void" due to the "fact that they were done by Autopen." "The 'Pardons' that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen," Trump claimed in a Truth Social post. "In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime," Trump added. Martin, who will now lead the Department of Justice's "Weaponization Working Group" targeting political corruption within the federal law enforcement department, added in a media interview earlier this month that he had been investigating Biden's last-minute pardons. "When [former President] Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, and it turned out that Marc Rich had paid a boatload of money to one of Clinton's friend's lawyers. That's not corrupt, it's not criminal, because the plenary power of the pardon. But in the case of Joe Biden and his pardons, they were so specific. Back 14 years, covering everything you've ever done. And when I say specific, they were broad, but they had time stuff on them," Martin said earlier this month, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. "And that at least leads to questions, because the plenary power's true. But the question is what is going on here, and I did get responses from some of them and those questions are ongoing," Martin continued. Conservative social media users have sounded off that the recordings show Biden lacked the cognitive ability to know about the pardons or executive orders he allegedly signed off on. "Joe Biden had no clue where he was for most of his presidency... Just listen to Robert Hur's interview with him... He's a complete mess. There's no way Biden knew about the pardons, executive orders and directives coming out of his office," conservative X commentator Tim Young posted to the platform. "I'd say with the Hur tapes coming out, maybe those pardons can be challenged? Biden was CLEARLY mentally incapacitated," conservative podcast host Shawn Farash posted to X. Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment on the tapes and subsequent backlash on Sunday morning but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden jokes 'I'm a young man' during interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur
Former President Joe Biden joked that he was a "young man" during an October 2023 interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur over his mishandling of classified documents, newly released audio shows. Axios released audio on Friday from Biden's interviews with Hur in which the then-president appeared to struggle to remember when his son Beau died, when he left office as vice president, what year President Donald Trump was elected to his first term or why he had classified documents that should not have been in his possession. In addition to Biden's memory lapses, the recordings showed him slurring his words and muttering when speaking to Hur. Transcripts of the interviews — conducted on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023 — were released on March 12, 2024. On the first day of the interview, Hur stressed the importance of answering truthfully and urged Biden to make his best effort to recall the events in question, which the prosecutor acknowledged happened years ago. "I'm a young man, so it's not a problem," Biden, now 82, jokingly responded. "Okay, great. Glad to hear it," Hur replied. Hur, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Biden's handling of classified documents, said in his report, released on Feb. 5, 2024, that he declined to bring charges against the president, in part, because a jury would find him a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory." The report acknowledged that the documents were "willfully" obtained by Biden during his time as vice president and as a senator. "I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing. I've been president, and I put this country back on its feet. I don't need his recommendation," Biden said when questioned by Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy days after Hur released his report. The special counsel's report, in addition to Biden's gaffe-prone public appearances, amplified pressure from Republicans who said he lacked the mental fitness needed to serve as president. Democrats and Biden's White House initially criticized Hur for his report, insisting the then-president was "sharp" and that the special counsel was politically motivated. Later in 2024, during Biden's re-election campaign, Democrats urged him to drop out of the race over his performance in the June presidential debate against Trump, citing his age and mental acuity. Biden formally dropped out of the presidential race in July and finished his term. His vice president, Kamala Harris, was defeated by Trump in November's general election.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Newly released audio reveals Joe Biden's memory lapses during 2023 investigation
A newly released audio clip appears to show former President Joe Biden struggling to recall the dates of key events in his life, including the death of his son Beau. The audio clip, first provided to Axios, is from former special counsel Robert Hur's investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency and took place in the days after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. In the clips released by Axios, Biden pauses multiple times and appears to struggle as he recounts various details, including the years that he spent as vice president, when President Donald Trump formally took office and when his late son passed away. Biden sat for more than five hours with Hur, who provided his 345-page report to the Department of Justice, which released it soon after in February 2024. The Biden administration provided the full transcript of Biden's interview to Congress a month later, which released it. Axios only published a small snippet of this from the audio they obtained. MORE: Small nodule found in Joe Biden's prostate during recent physical "The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public," Biden's spokesperson, Kelly Scully, said in a statement to ABC News. The Biden administration resisted releasing the audio recording itself, by Biden invoking executive privilege. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland was held in contempt of Congress by House Republicans for his refusal to release the audio. As ABC News previously reported, the Trump administration was poised to release the full audio, rejecting arguments posed by Biden administration officials that disclosing such evidence from a closed criminal investigation could prevent future high-profile subjects from providing similar cooperation to investigators. The release comes on the heels of books that have disclosed reporting on how Biden and his inner circle allegedly sought to shield aspects of his diminishing mental capacities during his presidency. MORE: Democrats grapple with Biden's reemergence ABC News has not independently obtained the audio. A White House spokesperson solely referred ABC to the Axios clips. It is not immediately clear how Axios obtained the audio from a closed criminal investigation. The Trump administration has separately resisted efforts by oversight groups and media organizations to release former special counsel Jack Smith's report on Trump's handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, which resulted in Trump being charged with 40 criminal counts relating to his allegede mishandling of national defense information and obstruction. Newly released audio reveals Joe Biden's memory lapses during 2023 investigation originally appeared on
