Special counsel report on Biden a ‘partisan hit job’, Democrats say

Joe Biden, senior aides and political observers strongly criticised the special counsel, Robert Hur, for extensively discussing the president’s age and allegedly fading memory in his report on Biden’s retention of classified information from his time as a senator and as vice-president – which did not produce an indictment.

Hur, who Donald Trump appointed US attorney for Maryland, “could not refrain from investigative excess”, said Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal counsel.

Though this was “perhaps unsurprising given the intense pressures of the current political environment”, Bauer added, the final report “flouts Department [of Justice] regulations and norms”.

Others raised the spectre of James Comey, the FBI director who in 2016 investigated Hillary Clinton over her use of private email in office. Declining to indict, Comey chose instead to publicly cast doubt on Clinton’s character, an act widely held to have helped tip the election to Trump.

Speaking to Politico, an unnamed top Biden campaign official said Hur’s report “felt like a Comey moment”, as the special counsel had put his “thumb on the scale during an election season”.

Dan Pfeiffer, a Barack Obama adviser turned commentator, called Hur’s report “a partisan hit job”.

The oldest US president ever, Biden is now 81 and would be 86 by the end of a second term. Polling shows most Americans think he is too old.

In late 2022, as Trump faced his own special counsel investigation regarding retention of classified information, Biden was discovered to have retained materials from his time as a senator from Delaware and as vice-president to Obama.

Hur was appointed special counsel by Merrick Garland, the US attorney general. Then in private practice but also a former principal