Biden-Hur interview: Special counsel audio shows Biden's memory lapses
Category: News & Politics
Via: vic-eldred • last year • 33 commentsBy: Marc Caputo,Alex Thompson (Axios)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Amid long, uncomfortable pauses, Joe Biden struggled to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected or why he had classified documents he shouldn't have had, according to audio Axios obtained of his October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.
Why it matters: The newly released recordings of Biden having trouble recalling such details — while occasionally slurring words and muttering — shed light on why his White House refused to release the recordings last year, as questions mounted about his mental acuity.
- The audio also appears to validate Hur's assertion that jurors in a trial likely would have viewed Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
- Partly based on that determination, Hur decided not to prosecute Biden for improper possession of classified documents, angering Republicans because Trump was facing charges in his own classified document scandal then.
- Democrats and Biden's White House blasted Hur for his observations about Biden. They repeatedly insisted he was "sharp" and that Hur was politically motivated. But the audio from the six hours of interviews indicates he and co-counsel Marc Krickbaum were respectful and friendly.
The big picture: The audio surfaces as Democrats and the national media are grappling with the legacy of Biden's White House and campaign hiding his decline as he ran for another four-year term at age 81.
- Democratic leaders have struggled this week to respond to reports about a new book on that topic — "Original Sin," by Axios' Alex Thompson and CNN's Jake Tapper — that will be released Tuesday.
- The audio — from two three-hour sessions on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023 — adds voice and dimension to the transcripts of the interviews that the Justice Department made available in the weeksafter Hur's report was released Feb. 8, 2024.
- Biden's White House refused to release the recordings last year, arguing they were protected "law enforcement materials" and that Republicans only wanted "to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes."
Between the lines: The audio shows what the transcript lacks — the president's dry-whisper voice and the long silences as he struggles to find the right words or dates. Those often were supplied by his attorneys, who acted as caretakers of his memory.
- The attorneys had to remind Biden the year his son Beau died (2015) and when Trump was first elected (2016).
- Also captured on the audio: the tick-tock of a grandfather clock in the White House's Map Room, where the interviews took place. It adds a metronomic measurement of Biden's halting speech — especially as he describes his book, Promise Me, Dad, about Beau's death from brain cancer at 46.
This is how that part of the interview is recounted in the transcript: Biden says, "OK, yeah. In 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal — the genesis of the book and the title Promise Me, Dad, was a — I know you're all close with your sons and daughters, but Beau was like my right arm and Hunt was my left."
- But here's what it sounded like in the quiet room where the dead air between Biden's pauses is emphasized by the tick-tock of the clock:
"Okay, yeah … "
- Tick.
"... Beau had passed and …"
- Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.
"... this is personal …"
- Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.
"... the genesis … "
- Tick.
"...of the book and the title Promise Me, Dad, was a …"
- Tick. Tock. Tick.
"... I know you're all close with your sons and daughters, but Beau was .."
- Tick. Tock.
"...like my right arm and Hunt was my left."
Reality check: While Biden had clear memory lapses and needed assistance at times (with words such as "fax machine" and "poster board"), overall he was engaged in the interview.
- He cracked jokes and made humorous asides, and was able to respond to the general gist of the questions. But he had little memory of how he came to have classified documents after he left office as vice president.
- On Oct. 8 — the first day of the interview and the day after Hamas' attack on Israel — Biden often was slow and forgetful of basic facts.
- That day, it took Hur more than two hours to clearly determine how the documents could have ended up in various personal desks and file cabinets after Biden left office. That was because Biden kept veering into other subjects.
- On Oct. 9, however, Biden sounded much more engaged and vigorous.
Zoom in: Throughout his testimony, Biden sounded more like a nostalgic, grandfatherly storyteller than a potential defendant who could be accused of hoarding secret papers. He waxed on about:
- How then-President Obama in 2016 didn't want Biden to run for president out of the belief that Hillary Clinton "had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did."
- The walnut wood and seven different kinds of molding in refurbished rooms of his home.
- The Corvette he drove with comedian Jay Leno.
- The technological influence Gutenberg's printing press had on Europe.
- The visual impact of Richard Nixon sweating on TV during his 1960 debate with John Kennedy.
- And the time he shot a bow and arrow in Mongolia.
"Am I making any sense to you?" Biden asked at one point while discussing the classification process for sensitive documents.
Though amiable, the interview became somewhat tense when Biden attorney Bob Bauer chastised prosecutor Krickbaum for leading Biden to consider changing his story about why he kept a classified document about Afghanistan.
- "Your answer is that you don't know," Bauer instructed the president at one point.
- But then Krickbaum noted that journalists had written about the document, and he asked if Biden intended to keep it because of its historical value.
- "I guess I wanted to hang onto it just for posterity's sake," Biden acknowledged.
That admission of intent technically could have exposed Biden to criminal charges, and Bauer soon interjected:"I just really would like to avoid, for the purpose of a clean record, getting into speculative areas.… He does not recall specifically intending to keep this memo after he left the vice presidency."
- Krickbaum then called for a break.
In another instance, Krickbaum noted that DOJ had a copy of a recording made by Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of Promise Me, Dad, whom Biden told in 2017, "I just found all the classified stuff downstairs."
- "So you can imagine we are curious what you meant when you said, 'I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.' " Krickbaum told Biden.
- "I don't remember," Biden responded. "And I'm not supposed to speculate, right?
- "Correct," said Bauer, Biden's attorney.
- "So — OK, well, I don't remember and it may have been — I just don't remember," Biden said.
- White House counsel Ed Siskel and his deputy, Rachel Cotton, also stepped in occasionally when the then-president was searching for words or dates.
Zoom out: Hur's report concluded that this evidence wasn't enough to persuade a jury to convict Biden — especially given how cooperative Biden had been (unlike Trump in his case) and how likable and forgetful Biden was.
- "It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president, well into his 80s — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness," Hur concluded.
- Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., promptly accused Biden of being unfit to be president if he weren't fit enough for trial.
Biden's defenders included then-Vice President Harris, who blasted Hur's report and called his comments about Biden's age "gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate."
- "The way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated —gratuitous," Harris said then. ".... We should expect that there would be a higher level of integrity than what we saw."
What they're saying: Biden spokesperson Kelly Scully told Axios: "The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public."
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All those clips of democrats like Jaime raskin attacking Hur’s integrity. They all knew Biden was toast mentally and they just went out and attacked an innocent man.
yet another example of why democrats have no basis to criticize trump.
This is how CNN shilled for Biden in the wake of the Hur report...
And of course they gave a platform to the biggest hack in politics, Adam Schiff, who claimed Hur "politically slimed" Biden
Biden just living rent free in MAGA’s head. And for what? It’s not like he’s coming back. I figure it’s yet another thing to distract people from the tragic clown show that is the Trump administration.
Yes, faithful ones. Pay no attention to yet another smackdown from the Supreme Court or the systematic rape of your basic rights. Instead, focus on some more pretend outrage about a guy who will have nothing to do with politics ever again.
The media lets them get away with it.
Steve Bannon says it is a war and one side is going to win and one side is going to lose.
He's probably right.
The far right MAGA lunatics know they are in a war and fight accordingly. The other side doesnt know where they are at.
NAILED IT!
It's incredible to watch people get fed lies for years, lose all their credibility parroting them and then act surprised others call them on the lies. On one level I get it. They were played for fools and apparently fell for it. They were the victims who lost all their credibility. I can see why shame demands they pretend it never happened or caused them to block their debasement from their memories. The rest of us because we trust our own senses, saw right through it. Sadly, unlike them, we aren't goldfish who can't remember yesterday.
But those of us who weren't played for fools want to make sure it doesn't happen again. Sadly Democrats still parrot and elect the people who lie to them. As long as they do, their lies will be remembered and recalled. No one should ever trust, let alone vote for these liars ever again.
Do you now? Your tone of resolve inspires me. Do you or someone else propose specific legislation? Perhaps a constitutional amendment?
Should we be empowering the judiciary or Congress - even members in the minority - to review the president?
Should it be easier to impeach him or prosecute him criminally?
Should both his behavior and his mental state come under greater scrutiny? Perhaps you would champion some independent enforcement group to function in this regard.
I am just fascinated to hear how you would keep any of the Biden shenanigans from happening again. We could test out your ideas on President Trump.
the irony is off the charts
Lol. all the laws in the world don't matter when the people who are supposed to enforce them, like Kamala Harris, simply ignore them and lie to the public. The Constitution depends on operating in good faith. Without it, you end up with a mentally incompetent president whose incapacity is hid by the very constitutional officers supposed to protect the nation from an invalid President.
So, to stop it from ever happening again, we should never put anyone who engaged in the conspiracy in a position of power again.
That’s it? Your solution to “make sure it doesn't happen again” is just voting for certain people?
Gee, I feel so much better. /s
Substitute Trump for Harris and I can agree completely.
Utopia is a stupid concept.
In Trump's first 100 plus days the Administration has been sued at least two times a day for violating the Constitution out right or the laws enacted by Congress.
Trump’s Legal Battles: Tracking Hundreds of US Court Cases
The irony is off the charts.
Why it matters ...it doesn't. ...but but but but Biden. You guys used to to be that way, claiming that every utterance of Trump's name was a bleating for armageddon.
But but but but....
The democrats installed a man who had no idea what he was doing. Who ran the country for 4 years and who put in all the Trump proof provisions in the last 90 days?
A House Committee is calling for whoever operated all those auto-pen signatures to come forward, otherwise they will get to the bottom of it.
The democrats pulled off the greatest scam in American history. They had an incapacitated old man installed as president and they told him what to say and do.
That is why IT MATTERS.
On of the things that caught my ear during the Hur tapes was when Biden mentioned the Trump election in 2017, Hur corrected him and said 2017, and stated that Trump was inaugurated in 2017.
Biden then said "why do I have 2017 here"
Was he given notes for the interview?
If he did, the man was so far gone even in 2023.
He was long gone. Did you hear the part where Biden is talking about shooting an arrow in Mongolia.
The media gets the biggest blame for this. They never acted as journalists, only as an extension of the democrat party.
I hear the major left wing outlets have given this story a whopping 0 seconds, with the exception of ABC, which, surprisingly gave it 45 seconds. I can assure you there will probably far less than that in the future.
I am surprised they have not blamed Trump for Biden's cognitive failure.
I'm enjoying all of it. The American people are on to it.
Your portrayal of him as someone near a vegetative state is quite the reach. Clearly his capabilities declined over his term, but just as clearly he was still lucid enough to remain in office.
I think he did a good job at getting the country back on it's feet post pandemic. We were headed in the right direction, then the current administration got in and started poking holes below the waterline in our institutions and economy, the full effects of which are as yet to be felt by the populace. Which is the real reason for this article: It is more of the Wizard of Oz/Carnie Shell Game distraction to make the country take their attention off of truly important, existence of a functioning democracy issues to chase after a metaphorical squirrel.
"Hey! Look! Shiny thing!"
The media and the democrat party put an incompetent old man into the White House and a few people told him what to say and do.
It is history now.
Good lord. Imagine claiming a years long coverup of the mental incapacity of the President "doesn't matter." That, right there, is why Democrats deserved to lose to Trump.
I think that you are guilty of party induced exaggeration.
Is the country still here? Yes. Did it continue to function. Yes.
Flash forward to today. We have a government of rich fucks Marie Antoinette-ing all of the people who even though they are working can't make enough money to make ends meet and totally destroying the infrastructure that made America the richest nation in the world. The current state of the Nation is, by my calculus, a hell of a lot more important presently than the ramblings of an old man who no longer wields power.
Well by that standard there's no reason to ever talk about anything, particularly trump.
LOL. If he wasn't actively destroying the nation as a shining light on a hill in preference of a dumpster fire in the swamp...
Amazing. This standard lasted all of one post "Is the country still here? Yes. Did it continue to function. Yes. "
Says a member of the party that stated 8 years ago, the same bs that they are spewing today, to wit.......
Trump is a threat to democracy
The country will end if Trump is elected
Trump is going to be a dictator
etc, etc, etc, etc
In your own words, and I quote...
"Is the country still here? Yes. Did it continue to function. Yes."
The irony of your post is hilariously obvious.
Swish, right by you. You failed to notice that Trump is actively in the process of destroying the nation state and the economy.
Thanks for playing.
How so?
Show the receipts. Be specific. Personal feelings and antidotes don't count.
Use legitimate independent sources.
I came across this, which I think explains why democrats continue to deny reality and make absurd claims about Biden's fitness for office as well any anything:
It's truly hilarious and very telling to watch the laughable moronic rightwing desperately try to distract from their disaster of a Presidential pick by parading out completely irrelevant and useless attacks on a guy who has exactly ZERO effect on American politics at this time. This story was about as useful as a fishnet condom and apparently serves the same purpose of rubbing those they imagine they're fucking the wrong way while accomplishing nothing. But I guess I shouldn't judge other people's carnal perversions, if they like donning their fishnet condoms and stroking it to videos of an old man being old, I guess that's their vice and I shouldn't judge, but it is pretty funny.
Thus why I prefer to be Jury and Executioner. The total SQUIREELL lost his Nuts as the dog ate the pony tale of the tape not recorded via a tape recorder of distractions that amount to such feeble fractions not noticed by those factions that just, either fail, or just choose to not too, accept the loser in chief who inn their eyes will always stay and be above the fray they certainly are afraid of, cause asz the tension on the rope grows tighter, their attempt to asphyxiate all that is wrong with watt they refuse to hear here, there, Hell, any fckn where falls deafinitely on closed ears dumbing down the constituent's and knumbing the fears they refuse to face, about what it is, they about face to save it, irregardless of how less offs they appear More ons than turned, then banked on straight out of weighed lies the demise that all should sea the depths of before the shallowness of mental deficiencies through elaborate efficiencies keep the closed minds from not seeing the invisibility the height of the naked truth, that's a total closed off clothes lined area, without clothespins to hang their high hopes upon for fear of what closed minds might find themselves smelling, without the clothespins pointing out without a doubt where and what is Rotten,, downstairs in the den, marked with a sharpie pen,, making a dull point, that in no way soon, can now nor will be, forgotten...
but, who are we to judge, or begrudge, ones unable to see their emperors'
new duds, milked for all those not abreast of our current events' , for like a circus, intentse