House Republicans will hold hearing with Robert Hur over Biden report

House Republicans will hold a public hearing next month with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after his vice-presidency, as the White House counsel reportedly wrote to the attorney general attacking Hur’s commentary on the US president’s memory as a violation of federal policy.

The House judiciary committee, chaired by rightwing Republican Jim Jordan, will hear testimony from Hur on 12 March, two unnamed people familiar with the plans told the Associated Press on Thursday. The White House declined to comment on the plans.

The committee has spearheaded much of the House GOP’s investigations into Biden, including the effort to impeach him. While that effort has floundered, Republicans want to hear from Hur after his report last week offered an unflattering assessment of Biden’s competency and age.

Hur’s report concluded that criminal charges would not be warranted against Biden in relation to wrongly retaining classified material.

But he elaborated by going on to describe vividly the president’s memory recall as vague and having “significant limitations”, while citing the possibility that Biden would present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

Biden welcomed the fact that no charges were justified – even if he was out of office – but angrily pushed back on comments about his mental acuity and said his memory is fine, while allies slammed Hur’s focus on that as a “partisan hit job”.

Hur was appointed under Donald Trump to be the US attorney in Maryland.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Politico reported that White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote to US attorney general Merrick Garland accusing Hur of “openly, obviously and blatantly”