President Biden Memory Investigation: Controversial Transcripts Revealed in Recent Interviews

The short version

• Special investigator Robert Hur interviewed President Joe Biden (81) in October 2023, in connection with the investigation of a case about classified documents.
• In the report he wrote afterward, Hur painted a picture of the president as an elderly man struggling with his memory. Biden has reacted strongly to this.
• The transcripts from the interviews were made public on Tuesday, in connection with Hur being questioned in Congress.
• The transcripts show that Biden several times struggled to remember dates and years. However, he appeared ready most of the time, writes the New York Times.

Sea view

– When did I stop being vice president? asked President Joe Biden (81), among other things, the special investigator.

This is shown by the transcript from Hur’s interviews with the president in connection with the investigation into the so-called document case, which was published by New York Times Tuesday.

The interviews were conducted over two days in October 2023.

The finished report, which was made public by the special investigator at the beginning of February, has been the subject of heated debate.

Here, Hur came to the conclusion that Joe Biden should not be prosecuted in the case that he had taken classified documents home with him. At the same time, he drew a picture of the 81-year-old president as an elderly man who struggled with his memory.

Hur pointed out that Biden struggled to remember both when his son died and when he himself was vice president.

Biden reacted strongly to this:

– How dare he? I don’t need anyone to remind me when my son died. It’s none of his damned business, Biden shot back after the report was presented.

Biden’s lawyers have also come out against the picture Hur has drawn of the president.

Also read: Slaughter Biden’s memory management: – A time difference in the election campaign

Published interviews

On Tuesday, special investigator Hur trooped up in Congress to defend his controversial report.

It is in connection with this hearing that the transcripts from his interviews with Biden, which are over 250 pages, are made public.

Excerpts published by The New York Times shows that the president several times fumbled with dates and years. Other times he remembered things quite clearly.

Washington Post writes that the interviews show that the president appears clearer than special investigator Hur has expressed that he did. At the same time, they write that the special investigator appears milder in tone than Biden has expressed.

SPECIALIST RESEARCHER: Robert Hur in Congress on Tuesday. Photo: NATHAN HOWARD / AP / NTB

– When was it?

Several times the president says that there are details he is unsure about, or that he does not quite remember.

After mixing up being done as a senator with being done as vice president, he is struggling, among other things, to determine a date for when his son Beau Biden died.

The excerpts from the conversation show that Biden was not asked about this directly, writes New York Times. He and the special investigator got into the subject after several questions about where Biden kept work-related documents after he finished as vice president in 2017.

One of the things Biden was working on then was a book about his son’s death.

– What month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30, Biden said, among other things.

– 2015, says one of the White House’s lawyers.

– Was it in 2015 that he died? says Biden, before after several confirmations from employees in the White House, he settles on the fact that the year is correct.

Beau Biden died of cancer on May 30, 2015.

Also read: US expert: – Biden must come across as “not senile”

Later, Biden buzzes with the dates of when Trump was elected president. It happened in November 2016, while he did not become president until January 2017.

– And what happens in the meantime is that Trump is elected president in November 2017? asks Biden.

– 2016, says a man who has not been identified.

– 2016, ok. So why do I have 2017 here?

– That was when you left the vice-presidential post, replies his adviser.

In the excerpt published by the New York Times, one can also read that the president sometimes struggled to keep track of which years he was vice president.

One of the cases occurred when he was asked how a folder of documents ended up in his garage. While talking about the end of the vice presidential term in 2017, he mixed it up with the year the documents were from, the newspaper writes:

– My problem is that I never knew where any of the documents or boxes came from, or who packed them together. I just had them delivered to me. So this is — am I, in 2009, am I still the vice president?

Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017.

Also read: Nikki Haley on Donald Trump’s age: – Worries me

Don’t just whine

However, Biden is not only said to have been grumpy during the questioning. According to the New York Times, he comes across as lucid and clear most of the time.

Among other things, he is said on two occasions to have remembered a diplomat’s point of view on specific matters, and to have described in detail how his house is designed. He also joked that the FBI was very thorough when they searched his house in connection with the investigation, writes Washington Post.

– The FBI is more famous in my house than I am, he said, among other things, and joked that he hoped they had not found any “risky” photos of his wife Jill Biden wearing a bathing suit.

– But you certainly did, she is beautiful.

In addition, he is said to have joked along, and corrected those who questioned him when they said something wrong.

In the transcript, one can also read that Hur thanked Biden for working with him. He also asked the president to do his best to remember events that were years ago.

– I’m a young man, so it won’t be a problem, Biden joked back.

Received criticism

During the hearing in Congress on Tuesday, Hur received many critical questions about the report in which he discussed the president’s cognitive abilities.

Some Democrats were not satisfied with the recall report, and believed that he had interfered with the ongoing election campaign.

From the Republican side, the criticism was of double standards. They reacted to the fact that Trump was charged in a document case, but that Biden was allowed to go free.

Special investigator Hur still stood his ground.

– My assessment in the report on the relevance of the president’s memory was necessary, correct and fair, Hur said in his opening statement at the hearing.

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2024-03-14 00:01:49
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