Special counsel Hur is set to testify before a House committee over handling of Biden documents case

WASHINGTON (AP) — The special counsel who impugned the president’s age and competence in his report on how Joe Biden handled classified documents after his years as vice president is set to be questioned himself on Tuesday, as House Republicans seek to keep a spotlight on the unflattering assessment of the president.

Robert Hur will appear before the Judiciary Committee to take hours of questions from Republicans and Democrats on his 345-page report, made public last month, in which he concluded that Biden should not face criminal charges for his handling of sensitive government information when he was vice president.

Hur’s report did cite evidence that Biden willfully held on to highly classified information and shared it with a ghostwriter. But the special counsel devoted much of his report to explaining why he did not believe the evidence met the standard for criminal charges, partly based on five hours of interviews with the president.

Hur said it could be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden intended to keep the documents, which is the standard for conviction in a criminal case. In part, he argued, jurors could be swayed that Biden’s age made him seem forgetful, and there was the possibility for “innocent explanations” for the mishandling of any records.

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