Biden aides weigh the political fallout if a transcript of his special counsel interview is released

WASHINGTON — The examination of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified material is officially closed as a legal matter, but the political battle is just beginning.

At the center of the fight: the contents of special counsel Robert Hur’s five-hour interview with the president.

Biden’s aides anticipate a lengthy partisan clash over the transcript, and possibly the audio recording, that would keep the president on the defensive over questions about his mental fitness as he campaigns for re-election, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The interview was a far more freewheeling discussion than what was detailed in Hur’s report, these people said.

They said Biden’s team is now weighing how to best position him to weather the protracted fallout from Hur’s report, which described the president as “an elderly man with a poor memory” and pointed to his answers in the interview as evidence.

The internal discussions among Biden aides have focused on how the transcript of his interview might help him versus hurt him politically when it comes to voters’ concerns about his age, the people familiar with the discussions said.

Another consideration is whether it would make strategic sense to release the entire transcript or — to the extent that full disclosure is avoidable — to publicize specific moments in the interview to help push back on questions about Biden’s handling of classified materials or mental fitness, the people familiar with the discussions said.

They said no final decisions have been made on an approach.

House Republicans on Monday requested that the Justice Department release any transcripts and recordings from the sit-down to three House committees — Ways and Means, Judiciary and Oversight — by