(Washington) – Joe Biden announced Thursday that he had refused to hand over the recording of his testimony before the special prosecutor, the description of the latter, especially among his opponents, sparked a flood of comments about the memory and mental health of the 81-year-old. Year-old US President.
Robert Hoare, the prosecutor in question, recommended in his 388-page report in February the impeachment of Joe Biden in the case of withholding classified documents. But he spoke about “an elderly man with a bad memory” and made “inappropriate” comments, according to the White House.
In this election year, when Biden is scheduled to face Donald Trump in November, Republican-controlled parliamentary committees have been demanding that the recording be made available to them.
At the recommendation of Attorney General Merrick Garland, Biden invoked his “prerogatives as chief executive” to deny this request, White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote to the Republican chairs of those committees and the Justice Department.
“The lack of a legitimate need to request these audio recordings exposes your potential goal: to replicate, distort, and use them for partisan purposes,” Ed Siskel wrote to the committee chairs, Jim Jordan and James Comer.
For his part, Mr. Garland justified his recommendation to activate the powers of the executive branch to maintain the confidentiality of some information.
“We have gone extraordinarily far to ensure that the legitimate requests of the committees are met, but this is not one of them,” he told reporters at a Justice Ministry press conference.
He added that granting this request would have “harmed our future ability to conduct sensitive investigations.”
This is an argument rejected by the other camp.
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“To determine whether the special prosecutor acted with fairness in not prosecuting the president — in not recommending a trial — the president, records are necessary,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said.
He stressed: “Frankly, the texts alone do not constitute sufficient evidence of the state of the president's memory, because the White House has modified the texts in the past.”
Republicans on two House committees are expected to introduce resolutions on Thursday to convict Merrick Garland of obstructing Congress' investigative authority after the Justice Department refused to turn over the recordings.
The special prosecutor, appointed by Mr. Garland in January 2023, concluded in his report that Joe Biden “knowingly maintained and disclosed classified documents after serving as Vice President when he was a private citizen.”
But he considered that “conviction would not be justified,” arguing in particular that the jury would give the benefit of the doubt to “a sympathetic, well-intentioned old man with a bad memory.”
The prosecutor particularly emphasized that the president, during interrogation, no longer remembered the year of death of his eldest son Bo.
The Democratic camp denounced the “unjustified” and “politically motivated” statements, but their Republican opponents in the House of Representatives immediately exploited the report to consider Joe Biden “unfit” to carry out his duties.
During a March hearing before two House committees, Robert Hoare justified his comments about his memory.
He stressed: “I did not correct my interpretation, nor did I unfairly distort the president’s reputation.”
The appointment of the special prosecutor in January 2023 followed the discovery of classified documents dating back to the time when Joe Biden was Vice President (2009-2017), in particular regarding US military involvement in Afghanistan, at his residence in Wilmington, Delaware (2009 -2017). East), as well as in a former office.
