FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden are demanding the Justice Department turn over the transcript and any recordings of Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur in his investigation into his mishandling of classified documents.
Hur, who released his report to the public last week after months of investigating, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents — and stated that he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office.
BIDEN RETAINED RECORDS RELATED TO UKRAINE, CHINA; COMER DEMANDS ‘UNFETTERED ACCESS’ AMID IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY
President Joe Biden salutes while arriving during an event in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Nov. 27, 2023. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated “sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”
Hur did not recommend any charges against the president, but did describe him as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” — a description that has raised significant concerns for his 2024 re-election campaign.
On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith penned a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting he turn over the transcript and any recordings of Biden’s October 2023 interview with Hur and the special counsel team. The three chairmen are leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden.
Comer had asked Hur if any of the classified records Biden held were related to the countries that his family conducted business with.
The New York Times editorial board claimed that Biden’s press conference in response to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report made voters’ trust in the president’s mental strength worse. (Reuters / Getty)
Comer, last week, told Fox News Digital he wants “unfettered access to these documents to determine if President Biden’s retention of sensitive materials were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling.”
The letter sent to Garland and obtained by Fox News Digital on Monday detailed the concerns that “Biden may have retained sensitive documents related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings.”
Rep. James Comer of Kentucky departs the House Committee on Ways and Means in Longworth House Office Building after the Republican conference voted to nominate Rep. Mike Johnson to be Speaker of the House on Oct. 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
“Further, we seek to understand whether the White House or President Biden’s personal attorneys placed any limitations or scoping restrictions during the interview that would have precluded a line of inquiry regarding evidence (emails, text messages, or witness statements) directly linking the President to troublesome foreign payments,” they wrote.
“Additionally, the Committee on the Judiciary requires these documents for its ongoing oversight of the Department’s commitment to impartial justice and its handling of the investigation and prosecution of President Biden’s presumptive opponent, Donald J. Trump, in the November 2024 presidential election,” they continued.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee leaves the Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
“Despite clear evidence the President willfully retained and transmitted classified materials willfully, Mr. Hur recommended ‘that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,'” they wrote. “Although Mr. Hur reasoned that President Biden’s presentation ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ who ‘did not remember when he was vice president’ or ‘when his son Beau died’ posed challenges to proving the President’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the report concluded that the Department’s principles of prosecution weighed against prosecution because the Department has not prosecuted ‘a former president or vice president for mishandling classified documents from his own administration.’”
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., left, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., make opening statements during a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
They added: “The one ‘exception’ to the Department’s principles of prosecution, as Mr. Hur noted, ‘is former President Trump.’ This speaks volumes about the Department’s commitment to evenhanded justice.”
Comer, Jordan and Smith demanded the materials by Feb. 19.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.