Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder suggests that the bombshell Special Counsel’s report that characterized President Joe Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man” with memory problems contained “gratuitous” content that would have been “excised” had the report been subject to “normal review” at the Department of Justice.
Authored by Special Counsel Robert Hur, the 345-page report concluded that the evidence compiled during the exhaustive DOJ investigation “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” in the classified documents case.
Special Counsel Hur report on Biden classified documents issues contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing DOJ traditions.
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) February 9, 2024
Had this report been been subject to a normal DOJ review these remarks would undoubtedly have been excised.
Hur opted not to charge Biden with any crime, but his report delivered an ad hominem attack on the President’s mental fitness. In the report, Hur justifies the denigrating content Holder calls “gratuitous” as necessary to explain why he would be reluctant to charge Biden, citing his damning portrayal of a doddering but “sympathetic” President as the reason a potential jury might not convict.
Holder’s charge of Hur’s “gratuitous” content seems aimed specifically at this reasoning, since if Hur’s evidence, gathered over a year’s time, “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt” — as Hur concedes — that fact alone would be the reason a jury would not convict. Speculation then about how a jury might perceive the President then becomes “gratuitous,” as it is besides the point.
Holder is not specific about what he means by “normal review” — though critics are taking the opportunity to assert that Holder means a process the DOJ would customarily use to whitewash the Special Counsel’s conclusions. Perhaps the most worrisome conclusion for Biden is that held by those who agree with Holder’s accusation, but still take the report at its word, as the comment below illustrates.
Gratuitous. Non-traditional.
— The Sarcasticat (@TheSarcasticist) February 9, 2024
But not wrong.
On appointing Special Counsel Hur in January of 2023, Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote:
“This appointment underscores for the public the Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department.”
