WASHINGTON — President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” special counsel Robert Hur found in a bombshell report released Thursday — though Hur recommended against criminal charges, in part because a jury might view Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Biden, 81, flouted legal restrictions on keeping sensitive documents throughout his 36 years in the Senate and after his eight-year vice presidency — stashing them in cardboard boxes “surrounded by household detritus” in his garage in Wilmington, Del., and other locations, the 388-page report said.
Investigators even uncovered a recording of Biden confiding in his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in April 2017, three months after leaving the vice presidency, that he still had official records because “I didn’t want to turn them in” — sounding similar to former President Donald Trump, who faces 40 criminal charges and up to 450 years in prison for resisting handing over documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
Zwonitzer also told Hur’s investigators that he deleted some audio files of Biden after the special counsel investigation began — and was aware of the probe when he did so.
“I’m not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation,” the writer said, according to the report.
