President Biden emerged bruised but not bloodied from a day of testimony by special counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday.
The big headline came from Hur’s comments that he had not fully exonerated Biden over classified documents found in the president’s possession in several locations, including his Delaware home.
The prosecutor noted repeatedly that his decision not to recommend charges against Biden was based on two related issues. First, serious doubts as to whether Biden had been willful in retaining the documents; and second, the assessment that conviction at trial was unlikely.
But if the non-exoneration was a blow to Biden and his allies, the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee fought their Republican counterparts to a draw over Hur’s hours of testimony.
In particular, Democrats constantly emphasized salient differences between Biden’s behavior and that of former President Trump, who has been charged over sensitive documents that were finally recovered — after a court-approved FBI search — at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.
In particular, they contrasted the cooperation Biden’s team had shown with Trump’s alleged efforts to frustrate authorities.
Hur had already inflicted serious political damage on Biden in a report released early last month, describing the president as coming across like “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Those comments put Biden’s age and cognitive capacities front and center at the start of an election year — and provoked an ill-advised, angry news conference at the White House.