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In a nearly 400-page report, special counsel Robert Hur recommended that President Biden not face charges related to his handling of classified military information. However, what has garnered even more attention is Hur’s scrutiny of the president’s mental condition and his difficulty recalling key dates.
“I am well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man,” Biden said in response to the report. “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.”
Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich explains why the report is not only legally damaging but, more significantly, poses a political threat to the sitting president.
Now think about that. This, we’re talking about the president of the United States, the commander in chief, and here is a [special] counsel saying after two days of interviews, totaling about five hours, that he literally reached the conclusion that the president of the United States would be so weak as a witness, and will be so sympathetic because of his frailty and his age, and his lack of memory, that you’d never get a jury to convict him.
And I think it poses for Attorney General Garland a real challenge. On the one hand, if he disagrees and believes that President Biden is mentally fine, they have a challenge because then he is, in fact, exposed to a trial. On the other hand, if Attorney General Garland concludes that President Biden has such a bad memory, and is so incapable of being tried, that he is, in effect, infirmed, then he has the challenge of applying the 25th Amendment, which was adopted precisely for something like this.
Now, it’s very hard to have it both ways — to say on the one hand he’s really good enough to be commander in chief with a trigger for nuclear war. But on the other hand, he’s really not good enough to try.
I think this is a significant event. I think it’s going to lead to a great deal of conversation. And I think that Robert Hur’s testimony in a few weeks is going to be very widely watched.
