Classified Documents Found in Biden Private Office in November 2022 (January 9, 2023)

Politics & Elections
401

Per the report, this is leaving out many other reasons. Here is a link to the Hur report. There is an Executive Summary that starts on PDF pg 5 (report pg 1). The reasons for not charging start on PDF pg 8 (report pg 4). Here are the reasons listed, in order, re: the most plausible charge - the Afghanistan documents [my comments in brackets]:

For example, Mr. Biden could have found the classified Afghanistan documents at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after… For a person who had viewed classified documents nearly every day 4 for eight years as vice president, including regularly in his home, finding classified documents at home less than a month after leaving office could have been an unremarkable and forgettable event. [Any normal person forgetfulness - not poor memory]

Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires. [Part of your mentioned reason that you’re conflating with another - but it’s about remembering if they were even there or not, at least 7 years prior - see next reason]

Another viable defense is that Mr. Biden might not have retained the classified Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home at all. [This reason to not charge has nothing to do with memory]

When Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter he “just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” he could have been referring to something other than the Afghanistan documents. [This reason to not charge has nothing to do with memory - Biden was almost certainly not referring to this if you read the full quote, but rather a letter to Obama]

We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. [Your reason]

Biden’s Personal Notebook
The other classified things, would be Biden’s personal notebook - his diary. It contained mostly personal things that would not be classified much less considered a presidential record that NARA would even keep (Hur compared to Reagan who did the same thing for precedent). It did include some classified information. In addition to all the reasons above, it would be a hurdle to determine whether this was not something he could keep at home.

The “disclosure” crime, telling the ghostwriter “classified” stuff, all came from Biden’s notebook - not the marked classified Afghanistan documents which may or may not have been in his home. As with all the other problems listed above, it’s not even known what was shared - the personal stuff or the “classified” stuff (I put it in quotes as I’m pretty sure nothing was mark classified in, ya know, his diary). This is grasping at straws and it would not be expected for Biden, most people, to remember what he told a ghostwriter 7 years ago.

402

Well done. Thanks for doing this.

403

So now we have either:

  1. Biden knew what he was doing and should be charged.
  2. Biden did it but is too senile to be charged.
  3. Any one of three innocent explanations that Robert Hur provided in his report.
  4. Any of a half dozen more innocent explanations that Robert Hur didn’t mention.

The prosecutor provided multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations for the documents. Irrefutable is how he described them, not me.

Multiple.
Irrefutable.
Innocent.
Explanations.

Seems weird that there’s so much focus on Robert Hur’s comment that juries might have a hard time convicting a smiling old dude of a felony and almost no talk about the multiple, irrefutable, innocent, explanations for the documents that Robert Hur provided.

404

Not sure why that’s weird. There’s no longer any question whether Biden will be charged or not. The issue is that the objective, irrefutable stuff was sufficient and there was no need for the subjective bullshit. That’s the beef. Nobody but Sam seems to think the subjective stuff was the sole reason.

405

I was referring more to news coverage than this thread. Seems like there’s a lot of coverage of the swipes at Biden’s memory and almost no coverage of the multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations for the the documents that are also included in the report.

For example, here are two censecutive paragraphs from the AP article linked upthread:

“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence,” the report says

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” investigators wrote.

Those two quotes are quite near each other in the report. Let’s look at the text between those two quotes:

Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence. We searched for such additional evidence and found it wanting. In particular, no witness, photo, email, text message, or any other evidence conclusively places the Afghanistan documents at the Virginia home in 2017.

In addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for the documents that we cannot refute. When Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter he “just found all the classified stuff downstairs,” he could have been referring to something other than the Afghanistan documents, and our report discusses these possibilities in detail.

We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.

They just skip right over the part where Hur says there are multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations for the documents. That’s a show stopper for any prosecution. When the prosecutor says that there is definitely reasonable doubt, that should be the end of the story.

There are multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations for the documents and also juries don’t like convicting old people was a shitty way for Robert Hur to present this. On top of that, it is inexcusable that the press if giving the old guy part so much coverage when multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations are something that no prosecution could possibly overcome.

406

Exactly. There wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict (…multiple irrefutable innocent explanations). So why bother with the bullshit personal stuff about memory, and especially about Beau’s death? The only explanation is that Hur wanted to throw a bone to Trumpers.

407

And as someone who supported Biden in the last election and supports him now in this one, I’m not declaring that this proves he’s innocent. Maybe he did something wrong, maybe criminal.

But the way the law works is that you don’t have to prove your innocence beyond all doubt, but the opposite. You need enough proof to convince a jury beyond a doubt and this wasn’t found.

The suggestion made in this thread by at least one person is that such evidence was found but they declined to charge because he’s too mentally impaired for a jury to not feel sympathy and let him off. Which is factually false when reading the report in full. If it was true, then it seems to me that the special prosecutor was derelict in not moving ahead. Clearly though, this is pure right wing nonsense meant to smear Biden in an attempt to harm his chances in the ejection, and unfortunately some people are gullible enough to fall for it and regurgitate it.

408

This is Merrick Garland’s fault.

Okay, he wanted a Republican to be investigating and passing judgment on whether or not to prosecute Biden. Fine.

But the Republican he chose was a youngish man of little principle* who plausibly wanted to score points with the Republican establishment (which now means “Trump”). Garland could have chosen, instead, a respected GOP figure near the end of his career–someone not looking to aid Republican election chances.

Garland values integrity above all things. His fatal flaw is that he genuinely and sincerely believes that EVERYONE values integrity above all things.

Absolutely true on both counts.

.
.
*“little principle” as demonstrated by the report Hur produced. I don’t pretend to be an expert on him.

409

My bold. He’s 51.

410

That’s why I said “youngish” instead of “young.” A 51 year old has many years of career success ahead, particularly if he has managed to please those with the power to provide that success.

411

Got it. Fair point.

412

The implication from your post was that he was young and inexperienced, maybe impulsive, which is not something typical in a 51-year-old. That was pretty misleading. Much better to just say that this was someone trying to curry favor with the potential incoming administration since he’s years from retirement.

On the contrary at 51 I expect this person to be very experienced. I’m very experienced at what I do and I’m about 5 years younger.

413

The irrefutable, innocent part is important legally. The “old guy” part is important politically. It shouldn’t be, but here we are.

414

Something has been bothering me since I first read the suggestion that the only reason Biden wasn’t charged was because of the belief that the jury might have sympathy on him and/or think he’s not capable of being held culpable for his actions.

I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve never heard of this in a case before. Where you have solid evidence to make your case but you decline out of a belief that the jury will be too sympathetic. That just doesn’t make sense to anyone who isn’t already eager to believe that Biden is guilty as sin and only his senility will save him.

My understanding is that if Biden were to avoid prosecution in that situation, he’d have to make an affirmative defense and the burden would be on his side to show it. And that would involve bringing in experts to test him and give testimony about it. Which would of course be devastating politically and could even force him out of office due to language in the 25th Amendment. That would arguably be as bad or even worse than a conviction (or a guilty plea).

But the idea that a special prosecutor might make the decision to not file charges solely due to concerns about jury sympathy, despite solid evidence, that is just absurd. To any Dopers with actual legal expertise, would that sound in any way plausible in an otherwise solid case?

415

And reporting on this report should focus the legal part.

“Special Counsel reports multiple, irrefutable, innocent explanations for documents found in Biden’s home,” should be the lede.

“Special Counsel also speculates that juries don’t like convicting nice old people of felonies,” should be in like paragraph 13.

416

Your quote from the article says both “investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure of a subset of records” and “there was a ”shortage of evidence” to prove that Biden placed the documents in the box and knew they were there”.

No, I haven’t. I bet you didn’t either. The article you linked to is not ‘the report’. If you want to read the report, here’s all 388 pages of it:

Some quotes:

They could have been stored, by mistake and without his knowledge,

as with the marked classified documents, because the evidence is not sufficient to convict Mr. Biden for willfully retaining the notebooks, we decline prosecution.

the evidence suggests that Mr. Biden did not willfully retain these documents and that they could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake.

and his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires. his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires.

There’s an entire section called " THE EVIDENCE FALLS SHORT OF ESTABLISHING MR. BIDEN’S WILLFUL RETENTION OF THE CLASSIFIED AFGHANISTAN DOCUMENTS BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT "

Mr. Biden self-reported to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage and consented to searches of his house to retrieve them and other classified materials. He also consented to searches of other locations, and later in the investigation, he participated in an interview with our office that lasted more than five hours and provided written answers to most of our additional written questions.

It actually says the opposite of that:

However, for the reasons summarized below, we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecution of Mr. Biden is also unwarranted based on our consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors set forth in the Department of Justice’s Principles of Federal Prosecution. For these reasons, we decline prosecution of Mr. Biden.

Nevertheless, we do not believe this evidence is sufficient, as jurors would likely find reasonable doubt for one or more of several reasons.

In addition to this shortage of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for the documents that we cannot refute

he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.

(Just kidding, that line was about Trump)

We therefore decline to charge Mr. Biden for disclosure of these passages to his ghostwriter. therefore decline to charge Mr. Eiden for disclosure of these passages to his ghostwriter.

To be clear, not being able to prove something ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ or saying ‘the jury would not convict’ means innocent.

Edit: full disclosure, this report is nearly 400 pages and I found these quotes with Ctrl-F searches. It’s very possible I missed context that could change the meaning of them. I don’t think I did, but it’s possible.

417

388 pages, and one gratuitous insult is getting 99.9% of the publicity. Not sure what portion of the blame is allotable to Hur, the media, the public, Biden, … But if Hur DID NOT intend that remark as a partisan slam, he sure coulda done a better job drafting his report.

418

I’m not seeing any implications about ‘inexperienced’ in anything I wrote:

This is all about Hur lacking integrity–and about Garland being blind to that, due, I believe, to Garland’s naïve belief that integrity is as important to all Department of Justice officials as it is to him.

I was saying that Garland chose a man of limited integrity plus large ambition (an ambition that has a fair chance of being fulfilled given that Hur is a ‘youngish’ man of 51, not a ‘close to retirement age’ man).

I continue to believe that Garland’s choice of Hur shows epically bad judgment.

Picking a Republican who clearly hopes to enjoy many prosperous years as a Republican operative can be put down to only one of two options: stupidity or bad faith. My vote is for ‘stupidity.’

419

The alternative is to only find a special prosecutor who is close to retirement which just sounds silly.

Better to just drop the whole age nonsense altogether and stick to assigning someone who has integrity period.

420

If he genuinely thought he just had to pick a republican, that would limit his choice to virtually zero.