Special counsel Robert Hur testifies on Biden classified documents probe

The White House said that special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony Tuesday was enough to put to rest the classified documents matter against President Joe Biden and that Hur’s decision not to charge Biden is evidence “the president is innocent.”

“Case closed,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams told reporters. He said Hur “came to obvious conclusion there is no case here” after interviewing more than 100 witnesses.

He said questioning from Republican lawmakers Tuesday made “it obvious they’re trying to help the former president,” referring to Donald Trump.

Sams told CNN that Hur’s decision not to charge Biden is evidence “the president is innocent,” despite Hur explicitly saying Tuesday he “did not exonerate” Biden in his report. 

Hur took special pains Tuesday to note his decision to not charge Biden should not be construed as an exoneration.

“I did not exonerate him. That word does not appear in the report,” Hur said.

The post was updated with more reaction from Sams.

Robert Hur listens during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Former special counsel Robert Hur appeared before Congress on Tuesday to explain his investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents — which led to no charges against the president but plenty of consternation among Democrats when Hur described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” in his report.

While Hur came ready to defend his investigation, outlining a specific, legal case — or lack thereof — the members of the House Judiciary Committee were fighting a battle over the much more subjective political consequences to Hur’s report just months before the 2024 presidential election.

Here’s a look at some of the key takeaways from Tuesday’s hearing:

Read more about the key moments from the hearing.

CNN’s Devan Cole, Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand and Evan Perez contributed to this report.

It wasn’t until Republican Rep. Ken Buck raised the final question during Tuesday’s hearing that former special counsel Robert Hur gave one of his fullest explanations as to why he didn’t bring charges against President Joe Biden.

“You must be doing a great job in your report and during your investigation if you have convinced both sides that you are somewhere in the middle,” Buck said to Hur. 

During his questioning, Buck pushed Hur to explain how he determined whether Biden willfully kept classified documents, noting that Biden should have known the areas where he kept classified documents were not secure locations and that he didn’t call the National Archives when he found classified documents while working with the ghostwriter of his memoir. 

This gave Hur the opportunity to explain there were “evidentiary gaps” that defense attorneys or reasonable jurors could focus on in the case, including that although Biden told his ghostwriter he found classified information, he may have later forgotten about the documents.

“A second argument that we considered is that perhaps these documents never actually were in Virginia,” Hur added. Biden had told his ghostwriter he had found “classified stuff” in a Virginia home he rented until 2019. 

Rep. Jerry Nadler speaks with reporters on Tuesday, March 12.

Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, gave reporters his key takeaways after Robert Hur’s hearing about his investigation into President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents: 

During the hearing, Hur explicitly said he “did not exonerate” Biden at the end of his yearlong special counsel investigation.

Nadler continued, “Secondly, the special counsel very pointedly contrasted this with the evidence against President Trump — former President Trump — who’s now been charged with about 40 different counts in terms of taking classified documents, not returning it when apprised of that, obstructing justice, hiding it, asking other people to hide the evidence.”

Robert Hur during the hearing on Tuesday, March 12.

Special counsel Robert Hur said Tuesday he made no finding as to whether President Joe Biden was mentally fit for office as part of his investigation.

Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat, asked Hur about his assessment that Biden had memory gaps. The congressman asked: “Did you say anywhere in your report that you thought … he’d be unfit for public office?”

The hearing has concluded after lawmakers briefly returned from an afternoon break. 

The House Judiciary Committee hearing on special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents has ended.

Hur told the GOP-led committee during the nearly five-hour long hearing that his assessment of Biden’s memory and cognitive skills found in his report was “necessary and accurate and fair,” and he explicitly said he “did not exonerate” Biden.

The bulk of the hearing involved members of the House Judiciary Committee fighting a battle over the much more subjective political consequences to Hur’s report just months before the 2024 presidential election.

The Biden campaign is feeling good about Robert Hur’s testimony Tuesday, a campaign official told CNN, citing the back-and-forth over Donald Trump’s handling of classified material during the House Judiciary Committee hearing. 

The special counsel’s report, which offered a damaging portrait of an aging president, invited questions about his mental acuity and age — a delicate issue in an election year in which voters have expressed concern about Biden’s fitness to serve a second term. 

But the hearing Tuesday largely focused on the differences between Hur’s investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and special counsel Jack Smith’s case investigating Trump.

Heading into Tuesday, the White House prepared for attacks from congressional Republicans against Biden, especially over lapses in memory that were referenced in Hur’s report. 

Democratic lawmakers have sought to contrast the Trump classified documents case and Biden’s handling of classified documents over the course of the hearing, repeatedly stating that no charges were brought against the president.

The House Judiciary Committee is back from a brief recess, and special counsel Robert Hur continues to testify about his investigation into President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.

Members of the committee are continuing to ask Hur questions about his investigation and report.

Robert Hur testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Special counsel Robert Hur was clear on Tuesday that he did not want to play ball with Republicans on whether President Joe Biden is “senile.” 

“Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘senile’ as exhibiting a decline of cognitive ability, such as memory, associated with old age,” Republican Rep. Scott Fitzgerald said. “Mr. Hur, based on your report, did you find that the president was senile?”

“I did not. That conclusion does not appear in my report,” Hur replied.

Hur had described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in his final investigative report.

Robert Hur speaks during the hearing Tuesday.

Robert Hur explicitly said he “did not exonerate” President Joe Biden at the end of his yearlong special counsel investigation.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, elicited the comments while tussling with Hur over his conclusions. She claimed Hur “exonerated” Biden, but the special counsel immediately took issue with the term during a tense exchange.

“This lengthy, expensive and independent investigation resulted in a complete exoneration of President Joe Biden for every document you discussed in your report. You found insufficient evidence that the president violated any laws about possession or retention of classified materials,” Jayapal said. 

“You exonerated him,” Jayapal retorted. 

“I did not exonerate him. That word does not appear in the report,” Hur said. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal listens during the hearing on Tuesday.

The result of this back-and-forth is that Jayapal spurred Hur to say something that clearly isn’t helpful for Biden, whom she was aggressively trying to defend.

Jayapal brought this up while arguing Hur didn’t have enough evidence to conclude Biden broke the law, in addition to Hur’s determination that a jury would sympathize with the president because of his age and at-times faltering memory.

Rep. Jim Jordan speaks during the hearing on Tuesday.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan accused President Joe Biden of being motivated by “pride and money” when he allegedly disclosed classified information with a ghostwriter working on his biography. 

Biden “shared information with his ghostwriter,” Jordan said, “the guy who was helping Joe Biden get $8 million,” referring to the advance Biden received for his book. Jordan said the money was Biden’s motive “to disclose classified information, to retain classified information.” 

According to special counsel Robert Hur’s report, Biden “had strong motivations” to keep notebooks which contained classified information and “consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part.”

Donald Trump’s alleged display of classified information to people working on the memoir of Mark Meadows, including the book’s ghostwriter, in July 2021 is cited in the classified documents indictment against the former president.

“These are the papers,” Trump says in an audio recording referring to a potential attack plan on Iran.

Robert Hur listens during the hearing on Tuesday.

After repeated questioning over his decision to include language about Joe Biden’s memory in his report, Robert Hur said omitting his analysis of the president’s memory would have made the report “incomplete and improper.”

Democrats have sparred with Hur over his analysis of how a jury could perceive Biden to be a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Under questioning from Rep. Adam Schiff, Hur repeatedly said politics “played no part whatsoever” in his decision-making, and that he was tasked only with writing a “confidential” report for the attorney general.

Schiff, a California Democrat, retorted: “You understood that you made a choice. That was a political choice. It was the wrong choice.” 

“What you are suggesting is that I shape, sanitize, omit portions of my reasoning and explanation to the attorney general for political reasons,” Hur said.

Rep. Hank Johnson speaks during the hearing on Tuesday.

A Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee accused special counsel Robert Hur of helping Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by issuing a damning report about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents so he could benefit professionally from a potential Trump presidency.

“Are you a member of the Federalist Society?” Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson asked Hur during a testy exchange, referring to the influential conservative legal group whose members have been picked by Trump for some key seats on the federal judiciary. 

“I am not a member of the Federalist Society,” Hur responded.

“But you are a Republican though, aren’t you?” the congressman asked, to which Hur answered yes.

While in office, Trump appointed Hur as US attorney in Maryland, and he later served in Trump’s Justice Department as the principal associate deputy attorney general.

Rep. Adam Schiff speaks during the hearing on Tuesday.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, slammed special counsel Robert Hur over the language he used to characterize President Joe Biden in his classified documents investigation report.

Schiff referred back to Hur’s opening statement where the special counsel said he did not disparage the president in his report.

“But of course you did disparage the president,” Schiff said.

The California Democrat, who is running for a Senate seat, then said that Hur had to have known the political impact his report would have upon its public release and that he could have written it in more objective way.

“And you could’ve chosen just to comment on the president’s particular recall vis-a-vis a document or a set of documents, but you decided to go further and make a generalized statement about his memory, didn’t you?” Schiff asked Hur.

Hur responded by saying that while he could’ve omitted comments about the president’s memory, it would’ve made the report “incomplete” and insisted that politics did not play a role in his writing of the report.

Robert Hur sits before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

In an exchange with Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, Robert Hur said that he did not make a determination as special counsel as to whether President Joe Biden was guilty or innocent.

“In this case, did you reach a conclusion that this man was outright innocent,” Issa asked.

“That conclusion is not reflected in my report, sir,” Hur responded.

Issa followed up, asking, “So you did not reach that conclusion, or it would have been in your report?”

“I just want to make sure the record is complete in that because I think it’s extremely important,” Issa said. “You did not reach an idea that he had committed no wrong, you reached a conclusion that you would not prevail at trial and therefore did not take it forward. Is that correct?”

“Correct, congressman,” Hur said.

Sen. Dick Durbin speaks t

Top Senate Democrats slammed special counsel Robert Hur’s report as “gratuitous” and argued it was not his responsibility to make assessments about President Joe Biden’s mental acuity. 

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chair of the Judiciary Committee, swiped at Hur on Tuesday. 

“There’s a clear difference here in treatment of these classified documents by President Biden and President (Donald) Trump. President Trump denied it and tried to evade it and may have concealed some evidence. I don’t know. President Biden, on the other hand, has been found to be cleared in terms of any future action by the Department of Justice,” he said. 

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, another member of the Judiciary Committee, also criticized Hur’s comments about Biden’s memory as being “worthless.”

GOP Sen. Josh Hawley pushed back against the Democrats’ criticism, telling CNN that Hur had a responsibility to explain why he did not recommend charges.

When asked about the contrast between Biden’s cooperation with law enforcement and Trump’s unwillingness, Hawley defended the former president. “The way the Biden Justice Department has handled this, I think completely bulldozes their case against Trump,” Hawley argued. 

Robert Hur testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from New York, asked special counsel Robert Hur whether he felt free and “unrestrained” by Attorney General Merrick Garland to potentially bring charges against President Joe Biden — if warranted.

Hur said while he was aware of the current Office of Legal Counsel policy of prohibiting sitting presidents from being charged with federal crimes, the investigative efforts were his own.

Robert Hur speaks during the hearing on Tuesday.

Special counsel Robert Hur disputed Rep. Matt Gaetz’s characterization that all the elements necessary for a federal criminal violation were met, emphasizing that President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents lacked “intent.”

In a response to Gaetz, a Florida Republican, Hur said:

Rep. Jerry Nadler, right, speaks during the hearing on Tuesday.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked special counsel Robert Hur whether someone could be “a little bit charged with a crime,” saying people had taken Hur’s report “out of context.”

Hur did not recommend charges following his probe into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified material.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, repeatedly invoked conservative icon Ronald Reagan to defend President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.

Former President Reagan also came up in special counsel Robert Hur’s report, which pointed out that Biden — like Reagan — believed his handwritten notes about classified matters were “personal” documents, as opposed to government-produced memos that contain clear classification markings and belong to the US government.

This is a big part of Biden’s defense and one of the reasons why Hur decided that it wasn’t appropriate to indict Biden for illegally mishandling the classified materials in his diaries.

Biden also invoked the Reagan comparison in his private two-day interview with Hur’s investigators in October, according to Hur’s report and the recently released transcript. Biden explained to Hur’s team that he didn’t think he was required to give his personal diaries to the National Archives after the Obama administration ended.

In his report, Hur said, “If this is what Mr. Biden thought, we believe he was mistaken about what the law permits, but this view finds some support in historical practice,” referring to the Reagan precedent.