It was roughly five weeks ago when former special counsel Robert Hur announced what nearly everyone expected him to announce: After months of investigation into President Joe Biden inadvertently taking classified documents several years ago, the prosecutor decided not to indict the incumbent president.
That should’ve effectively ended the matter. It did not.
Hur, a Trump-appointed prosecutor and Federalist Society supporter, also included gratuitous commentary about the president’s age and memory in his findings, touching off overwrought coverage and public conversation about Biden’s fitness. The politics quickly became messy: Republicans were furious with Hur for failing to find evidence of the president committing crimes, while Democrats were furious with Hur for peddling an unfair and unwarranted cheap shot that appeared designed to benefit the GOP.
Five weeks later, the public was able to see the transcripts of Biden’s lengthy conversations with federal investigators, which didn’t do the special counsel any favors: Despite Hur’s report saying that Biden presented himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” the transcripts painted a picture of a president who flubbed a handful of details over the course of five hours, but who was otherwise fine.
It was against this backdrop that Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee scheduled a public hearing with Hur, hoping to create a spectacle that might do fresh harm to Biden. As NBC News’ Alex Seitz-Wald noted, that’s not what happened.
Going into the hearing, Republicans were hoping for some bombshell revelations to revive their Biden impeachment effort, which appears to have stalled out after their star witness was arrested for allegedly lying about his claims. But Republicans did not get what they wanted. Hur offered no new evidence against the president, despite GOP fishing attempts for dirt on Biden’s alleged “influence peddling.”
It’s likely that the prosecutor expected pushback from congressional Democrats, who’ve made no secret of their frustrations with Hur’s gratuitous cheap shots at the president. But the panel’s GOP members appeared just as eager, if not more so, to rake the former special counsel over the coals — because Hur hadn’t gone nearly far enough for them to help undermine Biden.
“I want to thank you for the work you did as far as you could, but unfortunately, you are part of the Praetorian Guard that guards the swamp out here in Washington, D.C., protecting the elites — and Joe Biden is part of that company of the elites,” Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin said.
As for GOP assertions that Biden’s and Donald Trump’s documents cases are effectively the same, Hur’s findings already discredited the argument as nonsense. “It is not our role to assess the criminal charges pending against Mr. Trump, but several material distinctions between Mr. Trump’s case and Mr. Biden’s are clear,” the report said. “Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts.” The findings added, “Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.” During yesterday’s public hearing, Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania had Hur read this portion of his report out loud.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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