White House attorneys asked former special counsel Robert Hur to “revise” descriptions of President Biden’s memory lapses before the release last month of Hur’s report defending his decision to not bring charges against the commander-in-chief for retention of national security material.
“They did request certain edits and changes to the draft report,” Hur told House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during his testimony on Tuesday.
The ex-special counsel was referring to a Feb. 5 letter from White House Counsel Richard Sauber and Biden’s personal lawyer Bob Bauer.
“We request that you revisit your descriptions of President Biden’s memory and revise them so that they are stated in a manner that is within the bounds of your expertise and remit,” the attorneys wrote.
Three days later, Hur’s report was released by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said at the start of the hearing that the president did not “seek to redact a single word of Mr. Hur’s report” — despite repeated entreaties by his lawyers to Justice Department officials.
“The report thus demonstrates President Biden’s complete devotion to the rule of law, and his respect for a fair and independent Department of Justice,” Raskin said.
“President Biden did not assert executive privilege or claim absolute immunity for presidential crimes. He did not hide boxes of documents under his bed nor in a bathtub. He did not fight investigators, nor did he seek to redact a single word of Mr. Hur’s report,” he added.
“He consented to the search of numerous locations, including his homes, and he did everything to cooperate not obstruct.”
Sauber wrote another letter to Garland on Feb. 7, the day before the report came out, to accuse Hur of having further “violate[d] Department of Justice policy and practice by pejoratively characterizing uncharged conduct,” according to a copy of the missive published by Politico.
“The Special Counsel can certainly and properly note that the President lacked memory of a specific fact or series of events,” Sauber said. “But his report goes further to include allegations that the President has a failing memory in a general sense, an allegation that has no law enforcement purpose.”
Jordan pointed out a third missive that Sauber and Bauer fired off to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer on Feb. 12, which also claimed Hur had violated department policy
“We reiterate our objections to Special Counsel Hur’s inclusion of these unnecessary and unwarranted comments in the strongest possible terms,” they wrote, according to a copy of the letter also published by Politico.
Hur said the inclusion of Biden’s memory lapses — which involved the dates of his time in office as vice president, the year his son Beau died of brain cancer, and what a fax machine is — was necessary to “show my work.”
“I knew that for my decision to be credible, I could not simply announce that I recommended no criminal charges and leave it at that. I needed to explain why,” he said in his opening remarks to the committee.
Biden, 81, railed against Hur’s characterization of his mental faculties the evening the report dropped, maligning him as a “Republican counsel” despite the former US attorney for Maryland being unanimously confirmed to that position in 2018.
Former President Donald Trump nominated Hur as Maryland’s top federal prosecutor in February of that year, and he was confirmed the next month, with both of the state’s Democratic senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, lauding the choice.
White House Counsel’s Office spokesman Ian Sams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.