The private investigator said Joe Biden will not face criminal charges over handling classified documents, after he portrayed himself as an “old man with a weak memory.”
Robert Hoare said President Biden He “knowingly maintained and disclosed classified materials” after he was vice president and when he was a “private citizen,” and his actions pose “serious national security risks.”
But the prosecutor said he chose not to file criminal charges after a 15-month investigation because Biden cooperated and would likely be difficult to convict.
“We considered that, during the trial, Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-intentioned elderly man with a poor memory,” he wrote in a report.
Hoare said Biden's memory was “quite limited” when he was interviewed by prosecutors.
The report claims that he cannot remember when he was Vice President or when his son Beau Biden died.
previous president Donald Trumpwho faces a 40-count indictment for keeping secret documents, criticized the decision as a sign of a “two-tiered justice system.”
Biden insisted he had “fully cooperated.” Biden, who began office in January 2009 and ended in January 2017, welcomed the outcome and said he agreed to conduct five hours of personal interviews during the two days following the Hamas attack on Israel on July 7. October. last year.
Richard Sauber, a special adviser to the president, said mistakes made when filling out documents while out of office are an “unfortunately common occurrence” and have occurred with every administration over the past 50 years.
But he added that the White House disagreed with “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments” in the special counsel's report.
The report may embarrass Biden, who is 81 years old, amid criticism that he is too old to serve another four-year term, after he also tried to compare with Trump regarding personal ethics and national security.
“Secret things in the basement”
The investigation concluded that Biden obtained classified information about the US war in Afghanistan and other national security matters.
Biden told a writer who was working on his memoir in a house he was renting in Virginia in February 2017 that he “just found all the secret stuff in the basement.”
Hoare said the writer deleted audio recordings of his conversations with Biden after learning of the investigation, but kept the transcripts.
Donald Trump criticized the decision. Photo: AP
Mr. Hoare's report said the conversation created the “best case” for bringing charges against Biden, but also wrote that the documents may have been moved to his home while he was vice president, when he had power.
Members of Biden's legal team found the confidential papers in the office of his research center in Washington His personal residence is in Wilmington, Delaware.
What's the difference between Donald Trump's case?
In a statement, Trump described the report's decision as an “unconstitutional selective prosecution” while he fights his own case about the confiscation of classified files.
Boxes of documents at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. Image: US Department of Justice via Reuters
While there are similarities between the two cases, there are also some notable differences.
Trump was charged after prosecutors said he refused for months to hand over boxes of presidential records at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and took steps to hide the documents after the US government demanded their return.
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FBI search in August 2022 Prosecutors claimed that more than 100 confidential documents were found about the property.
He has pleaded not guilty and accused prosecutors of being politically motivated ahead of a trial scheduled for May, which will likely be postponed.
Biden's lawyers said they notified the National Archives after a “small number” of classified documents were found in November 2022.
Additional documents were later found in a garage and library at his Delaware home and turned over to the Department of Justice.
