Will They Apologize To Robert Hur?

Of course not—that would admit the whole spin was a scam.

Chuck Warren

You might remember Robert Hur as the special counsel investigating Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Hur did not bring charges. His report concluded that, while Biden had broken the law, a jury would likely not convict him because they would see Biden as “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who had “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

This was in February 2024, when the narrative still was that Biden was doing 50 pushups a day in the Oval Office, reading theoretical physics textbooks in his spare time as a hobby, and running the country for another four years was easy-peasy for someone with such a sharp mind.

When Hur published his report, which confirmed everyone’s fears that the president was not entirely there, the Democratic media establishment was outraged. They began attacking Hur to discredit him and his report.

Matt Viser of the Washington Post, writing under the banner “Democracy dies in darkness,” remarked, “Biden doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be.” He continued that Biden performed well and trusted the special counsel, and he ended his article by implying that Hur betrayed Biden’s trust, “Biden didn’t know it at the time, but months later, Hur would cast him as a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’”

CNN’s Oliver Darcy said that “the Hur report offered a misleading view of the president’s mental state.”

The New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg called Hur a Trump appointee and referred to his report as “a partisan hit job.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said that Hur cleared Biden of any wrongdoing and was “innocent”—Hur did no such thing, making Scarborough a liar—and accused Hur of being a partisan operative unable to “indict a Democratic candidate,” so, instead, he tried to “politically damage” Biden. His guest Michael Steele called it “gratuitous” for offering his “personal opinion.” His other guest, Adrienne Elrod, echoed this, calling Hur “a MAGA appointee” for his service during the first Trump administration.

Another MSNBC contributor, Andrew Weissmann of the Mueller investigation fame, called Hur’s conduct “inappropriate.” Many others compared him to James Comey because Comey also had told the truth about how Hillary Clinton was irresponsible with classified information, which hurt her campaign in 2016.

Jen Psaki mocked Hur’s mentioning Biden’s forgetfulness, saying, “I wasn’t aware he was a doctor.”

The most hilarious one was The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer. According to him, not only did Hur lie to increase Trump’s electoral chances, but also, he said that there was a larger problem in play here: Republicans used their media influence to force Biden to appoint one of their own as the special prosecutor, knowing that a fellow Republican would use his power to take down Biden. Now, I have worked as a Republican for my entire adult life, and I really wish that we were that good!

And last, there was Biden himself, who held a press conference and attacked Hur’s character. Most importantly, Hur had mentioned that Biden didn’t remember when his son, Beau, had died. Biden rebuked Hur, “I don’t need anyone, anyone, to remind me when he passed away. How the hell dare he raise that?”

So, why is this all relevant again? Because there’s now a tape of Hur and Biden’s interview. You should go and listen to it yourself, but here’s proof that it again vindicates Hur as an honest man.

Hur asked Biden about some documents kept at the Penn Biden Center. Biden asks for clarification that this is around the year 2017 or 2018. Hur confirms that. Biden responds:

“Remember, in this timeframe, my son is—either been deployed or is dying. And by the way, there are still a lot of people at the time, when I got out of the Senate, that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president. It’s not a mean thing to say. He just thought that she had better shot at winning the presidency than I did. And so I hadn’t at this point—even though I’m at Penn—I hadn’t walked out of the idea that I may run for office again.”

Then Biden asked Hur when Beau died, “Was it 2015?” which Hur confirms. Then he mentioned that Trump got elected in November 2017, and Hur corrects that it was 2016. Biden asked why he was thinking of the year 2017, and Hur reminded him, “That’s when you left office, in January 2017.”

The conversation includes long pauses because Biden can’t remember things. It also shows Hur as a gentleman trying to refresh a mentally struggling and senile man’s memory. At one point, Hur even offers a break so Biden could rest, but Biden rejects the offer.

The cherry on top is a comment by Kelly Scully, who served as a White House press aide to Biden and is his current spokesperson: “The transcripts were released by the Biden administration more than a year ago. The audio does nothing but confirm what is already public.”

This is completely true, except that she and her colleagues and media friends kept telling us it was not, and that Hur was a lying SOB.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.