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Vice President Kamala Harris responded to the Department of Justice Special Counsel's report on President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents on Friday saying that it was "clearly politically motivated."
"As a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate," Harris said while speaking to reporters on Friday. "The way that the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous."
"And so I will say, that when it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect, that there would be a higher level of integrity, than what we saw," Harris added.
The Context:
On Thursday, (DOJ) Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report following an investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents that were found at his home in Delaware and the Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C.
The report did not call for any charges against Biden, with Hur saying that there was no evidence "to establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," but it did note that the president "willfully retained and disclosed," classified documents after serving as former President Barack Obama's vice president.
What We Know:
The criticism of the report from Harris mainly focused on its mention of Biden's memory.
"Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," the report said.
The report also said that during interviews with the Special Counsel, Biden "did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended," and that "he did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died."
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Views:
Biden also responded to the report on Thursday saying, "Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America's security. I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that."
However, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates responded on X, formerly Twitter, sharing a letter that was sent to Hur from Biden's counsel, Bob Bauer, which said, "We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate."
In a joint statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Majority Whip and Representative Elise Stefanik, called the Special Counsel's report "deeply disturbing."
"Not only does it demonstrate the President's recklessness, but exposes a two-tiered system of justice that is indicting one President with politically motivated charges while carrying water for another amid similar allegations," the statement said.
What's Next:
Former President Donald Trump is currently facing a federal indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith for his alleged mishandling of classified documents that were found at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and Oleg Nekritin of the Law Offices of Robert J. DeGroot told Newsweek that the former president could possibly use the report on Biden to his advantage.
"Former President Trump's legal team will argue selective prosecution based on political affiliation to dismiss the indictment. However, there does not appear to be legal precedent for the legal strategy to succeed. The strategy may have more success before the court of public opinion," Nekritin told Newsweek earlier on Friday.
Update, 2/9/24, 2:08 p.m. EST. This story has been updated with further information and to reflect that Newsweek reached out to the White House.
Update, 2/9/24, 2:30 p.m. EST. This story has been updated with further information.
About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more